


The Mafia

by glxybbs



Category: Banana Bus Squad, Gay baby gang
Genre: Angst and some fluff, Gen, Gun Violence, Mafia AU, idk this is gonna update so randomly im so sorry, knive violence, someone on tumblr wanted me to post this so... here it is i guess lol, sorta gang au, theres a lotta violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 00:04:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16464884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glxybbs/pseuds/glxybbs
Summary: Full credit for this AU idea goes to @incorrect-bbs-au-quotes on Tumblr!!! This is simply my take on their AU!





	1. Irish Runaways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a backstory for Brian and Nogla that I spoke about writing with a few people on tumblr a few months ago, hence why none of the other boys appear :)

“Boss is bringin’ those feckers over from Belfast like we aren’t gonna notice that he’s replacin’ us!” One of the men laughed, his accent thick and heavy. He slammed a pint glass down on the table as he finished speaking, the last few droplets flying out and landing on the table in small droplets. “Well- Well, we’re gonna show him, aren’t we Brian?!”

Brian looked up from his sandwich and raised an eyebrow. He let a soft chuckle out and shook his head, “We sure are, Sean.”

He took another bite as he listened to his friends bicker about the future plans of their group. The plans of an uprising against their boss had been quietly circulating for months, now. A few people had gone missing and others had been found dead as a result of the rumour getting louder, their photos showing up in the papers and their names being revealed to the public to bitterly commemorate to their memory.

“Will ye both shut up before one of his insiders hear us chattin’ ‘bout this?” Another glared at his own glass, pale finger interlocked on the wooden surface. “All of us’ll be dead before the night’s over if yous don’t quiet down.”

“Relax, man.” Sean let out another quiet laugh and let his head fall back, his eyes locked on the ceiling above them. “It’s only the t’ree of us in ‘ere, who the fuck is gonna... Gonna break in ‘ere ‘nd shoot us dead, hm?”

As those words were said, the front door slammed open and heavy footsteps were chased by a choked sob. Cold air sprinted in from outside, dogs barking and cars backfiring carrying across from the street. A gun clattered to the floor, metallic clicks following. Another loud sob, the first of many pained wails. Someone collapsed to the floor.

Brian placed his half-eaten sandwich down on the closest plate to him and peered out into the hallway. His eyes widened and he found himself sliding along the wooden floor before he knew that he’d left the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around the crying man before him, shushing and comforting him as best as he could in his partially tipsy state.

“David, David, calm down for me.” Brian whispered, completely unsure of what he had to do with anything besides his words. “Breathe, breathe... Fuckin’ hell, man, I can smell the rum on ya. Where the hell’ve you been?”

“They-they.... They got them, Brian!” David yelled through his own cries, his head in his hands and his hands dripping with his own tears. “They f-fockin’ killed them both a-and I... I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it!”

“Who’s them, David?” Brian pulled David from his chest and looked into his eyes, searching for an answer that he knew he wouldn’t get verbally. His lips parted slightly as realisation hit, his own gaze falling to the floor. He suddenly felt sick, as though his food had been poisoned on the plate that he’d been eating off of. He let out a shaky breath before speaking again. “C’mon, let’s get... Let’s get you upstairs before ya catch hypothermia.”

It took ten minutes for Brian to drag David up the stairs, his throat caching slightly from constantly trying to calm the older of the two down. Their footsteps creaked in time with one another, David’s sobs rattled through the walls. The wind howled through open windows. The men downstairs laughed at their thoughts of overthrowing the boss. Blood softly dripped onto the brown carpet, staining it with a permanent reminder of what the thoughts of rebellion would soon entail.

Once Brian closed the door to their shared room, he started to pace. He tore his fingers through his hair and then planted his hands down on the windowsill, a harsh blue gaze silently interrogating anyone who happened to pass below. His teeth were gritted, slowly grinding as he let his thoughts mix and mingle before he gave them a chance to explode. His breaths were shallow yet harsh, managing to be both sharp and dull at the same time.

With a sudden burst of anger, he threw the closest object at the opposite wall, a crystal glass erupting into a thousand shards and spreading across the floor as though it were water. His hands flew back to his hair and his pacing started again, cold blue eyes blinking fast to try and extinguish the anger that built inside of his chest. His phone buzzed quietly in his back pocket.

“I-I tried, Brian!” David’s words were muffled, spoken into a pillow as though he were trying to confess his sins without behind heard. “Ma told us all... She fockin’ told us before we left Ireland and w-we didn’t.... We didn’t listen!”

“Yer ma didn’t know what the hell she was talkin’ about half the time, David.” Brian let himself sit on his own bed and let his vision fall to the floor. His left leg bounced in anticipation, his worn trainers thudding softly against the cold hardwood that was beneath them. “She still doesn’t, the poor woman.”

The silence between the pair was tense, holding onto things that neither wanted to speak into existence and taunting them with the things that had already been said. Brian had pulled his phone from his pocket and was slowly replying to texts that required urgent answers, David was still crying into his pillow. It was exhausting, the silence begging to be heard and felt over everything else in the world, poisoning anything it touched and shooting the things that it couldn’t reach with its long and gangly arms. It cried for attention, sobbing louder and harder than anyone else to try and overcome the emotion in the room in a pitiful plea to be felt as more than what it truly was.

“I-I don’t wanna do this anymore...” David looked up from his pillow and stared at Brian with wide, teary eyes. His lips quivered with an unheard sob, his shoulder shaking as they prepared for the incoming tidal wave of emotion. “I-I... Brian, I wanna go home.”

“We’re both fucked if we go home, and ye know it.” Brian glanced up from his phone and shook his head. “I’m good, but there is no way on God’s green Earth that I can get both of us on a plane and back to Ireland without the damned Gardaí findin’ us as soon as we get within the airspace.” 

“Just outta this shit, then!” David threw his pillow at the ground and revealed his own blood-covered body. His shirt was painted crimson, his arms and throat covered in a slightly lighter shade of the same make. The collar of his shirt was soaked with his own tears, the light blue darker than the rest of the shirt in the places where his tears had landed. His nose was running. His cheeks were puffy and splotched with light red, his lips quivered with a frown that threatened to get worse if he tried to hold it back for any longer. “Just... Get us outta ‘ere, Brian. Please.”

“I can’t promise anything, David.” Brian opened his contacts and looked over at his friend. “I’ll try call in a few favours, see who can give us a place to stay while ye make us dead as we can be.” 

“How the hell d’ya expect me t-”

“Hack into the files and kill us both, shoot me in the throat and kill yourself however ya feel like doin’ it. Leak it to the news as soon as we’re a mile clear of this place and publish those photos that my mother took of us in Galway the day before we left, send ‘em to everyone who’s gonna try ‘nd look for us. Sign it from Sean.”

\-----------------------------

The pair ran as soon as night fell on the following day. They packed two backpacks, carried loaded guns beneath their jackets and changed their taxi every other mile until they figured that they were far enough to stop trying to run. They were almost silent the entire time, both watching every move made by the people around them as though they all had a personal vendetta against them. Soft breaths were filled with caffeine and nicotine induced anxiety, hands shaking from the adrenaline that the drug had given them both.

They stayed the night in a dingy motel, one where people went to find trouble before trouble found them. The walls in the reception area were peeling, bad paintings in cracked frames poorly covering over the area that had been attacked by time. The seats in the waiting area had silver springs poking through yellow foam and beige coverings that were ridden with various stains that neither man wanted to know all too much about. The carpet was ripping up from the floorboards beneath it, the ragged fabric feeling more like stone beneath their worn-down shoes.

“Room for two, leavin’ in the mornin’.” Brian leaned over the desk and forced his signature smile, the type that he used to get his own way as soon as he asked for it. “We can pay.”

“It’ll be $45.” The girl behind the desk glanced over her January edition of Vogue, raising an eyebrow at the two before her. “Both of you have to be out of here before 10am. The Irish guys are lookin’ for both of you and I ain’t getting caught up in mafia shit before I’m outta high school.”

“We’ll be out at nine, no trace left behind.” Brian dug into his back pocket and produced a $50 note, sliding it over the desk to the teen who still seemed unsure. “Cross my heart, swear on my life.”

“Upstairs, take a left. It’s the third door down, the only one with a working lock.” She slid a silver key over to him and turned back to her magazine. “Don’t get any blood on the beds, don’t shoot each other... Out before 10.”

“Thank you.” Brian picked up the keys and took hold of David’s wrist before he managed to mess anything up for them again with his endless drawl of words that made on sense when put together.

The room was small, barely big enough for the both of them, but it would be enough to get through a night. There was a TV sat on a broken dresser, the screen crackling with white noise and shifting static. The lamp beside the beds was cracked, but still worked. The covers on the single beds were thin and straightened, as though someone had managed to smooth them with a hot iron before the two had walked into the room.

David set his backpack on the floor and fell onto the bed closest to the floor. It creaked beneath his weight, despite him being relatively light when compared to people who usually stayed in this kind of establishment. He groaned turned onto his back, pushing himself up into a sitting position to watch Brian rather than to focus on the discomfort that he clearly felt.

Brian opened his own bag and pulled out a squished granola bar, his upper lips curling slightly at the sight of it. “God, I would kill a thousand men for McDonalds fries right now.”

“All of this shite, and you’re still ramblin’ on about fries?” David laughed quietly and shook his head. “Never change, Brian.... Never change.”


	2. Irish Runaways [Part 2]

It was a dark alleyway. An orange security light blinked over the dumpster against the wall, illuminating the bin bags and everything that had been left behind by people trying to get away. Old cigarette butts were crushed against the pavement, shards of glass decorating floor in a deadly fashion. Sets of footprints lead in various directions, some more faded than others and a few staining the ground in an array of reds and browns. The walls were painted with graffiti that showed everything from political propaganda to poorly written names that had dripped down the bricks with time. A wire fence cut the alleyway off from the other side of the street, pieces of cloth ripped against it from where people had clearly tried to climb it in the past.

Brian felt like an idiot for letting himself fall into this trap. It was something that he should’ve seen from a mile away, he should’ve known that getting away wasn’t as easy as it had seemed. He should’ve taken his chances and stayed in New York with the mafia, covering for David on a flight to a country where nobody would know his name or his past by saying that he’d had to shoot him dead after overhearing talk of a rebellion, something that would be believed by the people who had to believe him.

Yet, here he was, with a bullet in his arm with tape over his mouth to stop him from talking someone else to death. Tears tripped over his eyes from the pain in his own arm and from having to watch David get shot in the stomach, his breath coming out in short and choked coughs that barely made it past his barrier. He could feel himself shaking beneath his thick leather jacket, he could feel the hot and sticky blood rolling down his arms and he could see it splashing in the puddle that he’d landed in after he’d been shoved to the ground. He gritted his teeth and tried his best to yell at the two men who were walking away from the scene, cursing their entire family tree in his head and praying that God would take notice of him for once.

They’d both been condemned to a death that was slow and painful, one that would give neither the satisfaction of meeting their maker before the night was up. A death that both men had given to others without thinking of what could have been done to make it hurt less. A death that would warn the rebels in New York to stop trying to rise up, to show that their boss didn’t take kindly to those who tried to flee from his hand.

“F-uck me...” David sat against the wall opposite Brian with both of his hands pressed over his wound. He looked down, briefly, then turned back to face Brian with his face three shades lighter than it had been before. “T-this is how we die, isn’t it?”

‘No!’, was what Brian would’ve said had his mouth not been taped shut. ‘You won’t die, I won’t let you die here!’

“Ye and yer-yer big fockin’ gob.” David shook his head and almost smiled, though it looked more pained than any of his other smiles had before. “Ha-had to brag about speakin’ three lan-guages, didn’t ye...” He breathed out a laugh and rested his head back against the wall, his eyes set on the smog-ridden sky above. “Prick.”

Had Brian not had tape over his mouth, he would’ve thrown another insult in David’s direction and laughed it off, like he always did with his childhood friend. Instead, he settled for a playful glare and then settled into a wince as the cold started to hit his wound. His eyes snapped shut and his head banged against the cold bricks behind him, a muffled hiss coming from beneath the tape.

Moments of silence passed uncomfortably, neither having anything to add to their situation besides shared looks of pain. David started to sing ‘Pyramid Song’ by Radiohead to pass the time, his words strained and pained but the tune still floated. The song was haunting and cold, blending perfectly with the night that they had both chosen to die on.

I jumped in the river, what did I see? Black-eyed angels swam with me.

A set of footsteps approached the alleyway, a warm voice laughing on its own. A few words were spoken, another loud laugh was let into the world. It was then drowned out by a passing car that played loud music from open windows, disappearing beneath the mask of a city that refused to stay silent.

A moon full of stars and astral cars. And all the figures I used to see.

“Holy shit- Pin me and get to me, now. Bring th-the big car and get Evan to-to call Panda in to set up the hospital room.” The voice was closer, now. The person had an American accent, one that Brian could see himself getting used to if he wasn’t sentenced to death upon opening his mouth. “I said now, Tyler! That means now, not next Christmas!”

All my lovers were there with me. All my past and futures.

Brian opened his eyes narrowly and caught a glimpse at the stranger before the pain got worse. His face screwed up as the bullet seemed to grow inside of him, the pain feeling like a beating heart with blazing knives shooting out in place of the blood. He tried his best to cry out, the sound leaving his throat and getting caught by the tape over his mouth.

He was starting to regret calling one of the shooters’ mothers a whore in French without checking if either of them knew the language to begin with.

And we all went to heaven in a little row boat.

“Hey, hey...” The American crouched before him and ran his fingers across Brian’s cheek, a rough thumb dragging tears away from his jaw. It wasn’t the sort of hand that would kill a stranger, or one that had the intent of killing him – he knew that type of hand far too well. He felt even more idiotic for having an internal debate about hands while bleeding out in an alleyway. “Lemme get this- it’s gonna hurt, sorry.”

He was right, but Brian didn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt.

“Jesus, you’ve lost a lot o-of blood.” He threw the tape aside and looked over Brian with concern lacing deep brown eyes. His face was decorated with an array of brown scabs and white scars, each one clearly carrying a story behind it. His hair wasn’t styled at all, most of it falling over his forehead and the rest barely managing to stand upright with the gel that shone beneath the orange security light above. “I-I’m gonna do my-my best to help you, both of you.”

“Hel-Help him firs-t.” Brian had expected his first words to sound more heroic than they did. He expected himself to be able to stand and walk away as though nothing were wrong like the hero always did in the movies, throwing a pair of expensive sunglasses over his eyes and getting into a car that cost more than a mortgage in London to drive away. Instead, he was met by pain shooting through his body as soon as he tried to move and no car waiting to take him away. He groaned.

“Fuck off wi’ th-at.” David snapped back, opening his eyes ever-so-slightly to glare at Brian in a manner that showed that he meant what he had said.

“Him.” Brian raised his good arm and pointed Brock in the direction of David, as though he were invisible to the rest of the world. His vision started to falter, the world turning into a black blur around him. He let out a harsh and slow breath before speaking again. “He... He w-won’t l-live. Give h-him a chance. Please.”

A light appeared before his eyes, not as bright as the bible had said it would be, but enough to be seen and acknowledged for what it wanted to be. He saw his mother waiting at the end of it, beckoning him closer and begging for him to join her on the other side, and there was nothing that Brian wanted more than to feel her embrace again – to cry into her shoulder and apologize for everything that he’d done wrong throughout his life. He stepped closer to the light as the world darkened around him, the song of angels radiating around him and a cool breeze wiping him free of the sins that he’d cast over himself since he was a child.

“Brian!”

Brian fell from the light and the world turned black.

\-----

Brian awoke in a comfortable and unfamiliar bed. His head pounded, his lips were chapped and he felt as though someone had dropped a tonne of bricks onto his chest moments before his eyes blinked open. His right arm was in a sling, a white bandage soaked with crimson covering where his wound was and wrapping around the rest of his arm for a reason that Brian was unsure of.

When he’d been shot in the past, a high dose of morphine (or whatever drug was available at the time), a sketchy doctor from out of town and a thin bandage from the dollar store had been enough to stop him from dying. This all seemed too much to him, the amount of effort that had been put into stopping his wound from stealing his life away clearly being equal to the sort of care that would be received in a hospital. Only, Brian felt as though he wasn’t in a hospital from the lack of... Everything that would signify that he was.

He was floating on a bed made of clouds in his mind. It was warm and soft and everything that he could’ve dreamed of having with a little more added on the side. His thoughts were slightly fuzzy, their motives unclear to the person who had to try and figure out what they meant, but it was something that he could get used to. He felt numb but in a good way, as though all of his troubles had finally been lifted from his body and thrown for someone else to carry for him. It was nice, Brian decided, something that he wouldn’t fight as long as it didn’t try and fight him.

“You’re awake.” The American who’d torn the tape from his mouth sat beside the bed, his hand rested on the side. He held a book in his other hand, the page folded in the corner and the words as clear as day to anyone who wanted to peer over at what he was reading. He smiled at Brian. “You had me scared for a while, not gonna lie. I thought you were gone as soon as you passed out.”

Brian furrowed his brows and swallowed a breath. “Where t-the hell am I?”

“Forgot... Welcome to my home. I’m Brock, I run a small gang of people who want to make the world a better place through bad ideas and crime.” He closed his book and turned to face Brian fully. “Don’t suppose you’ve ever been here before, have you?”

Brian shook his head and laid back down against the soft pillow. He wondered if he’d be yelled at for going back to sleep. “L-Lived in New-New York, dun-dunno where I am.”

“That’s a long way to travel just to get shot, Brian.” Brock laughed to himself and brushed his hair out of his eyes. Brian found himself staring, but he wasn’t sure whether or not it was the drugs leading him to space out while watching Brock’s lips move. “Sorry, bad timing. I’m good at that... If you don’t mind answering, w-why did you get shot?”

Brian’s eyes drifted closed and a quiet breath left his lips. “ One of the... The ma-mafias killed David’s fami-ly, so... So we-we ran and here we are, s’pose.”

“You’ve been in a gang before?”

“I-I was at the top, Brocky.” Brian hummed, the fuzziness from the drugs bringing his tired and flirty side out more than his sober self would’ve liked in the situation. “I could talk a-a man outta his family if... If I tried me best, which I always do.”

“Wow.” Brock blushed a faint pink at the nickname. He leaned closer to the bed and tilted his head slightly. His tone mimicked that of a parent who was pretending to be impressed by their child drawing a stick figure with a smiley face, but not as mocking as those tones tended to be. He seemed to be genuinely interested, which was a pleasant change to Brian. “What else did you do?”

“Kil-led people.” Brian took a deep breath for no reason other than to feel the rush of air entering his lungs. “A-and I sold drugs, and fucked my o-ld boss, and I can speak three dif-different languages without makin’ any mistakes!” He yawned after he finished speaking, and the fuzziness that clouded his mind started to cloud his body, as though it were wrapping him up in a blanket that would keep him safe until he woke up. “I can do loads of stuff.”

“That’s mighty impressive...” Brock rested his hand over Brian’s for a brief few seconds and stood up. “You look tired, try and get some sleep. I’ll come check back up on you in a bit, make sure that you didn’t die and all that jazz.”

“Night Brocky.” Brian’s words were quiet, slightly slurred as sleep dragged him closer. His bruised and battered features displayed a woozy smile, one that would be worn by a drunkard after a two-day bender in a town where nobody knew their name. His eyes opened slightly and his good hand raised to wave at the American as he left the room.

“Goodnight, Brian.”


	3. It can't hurt

Old photos lined the walls. A scribbled height chart was drawn against the doorframe, names scribbled out and rewritten higher up each time. A vase sat on the full bookshelf, green leaves and red roses poking over the top of the glass. Clothing items were thrown across the floor, a trail leading through to the living room. Cheesy 90s music was playing quietly from the TV, pitchy singing and off-tune muttering barley managing to keep up with the pace. People danced up and down the corridors, red solo cups spilling various kinds of alcohol along the wooden floor without a care in the world.

Despite all of that, the small house seemed to carry the weight of the world on its shoulders, cracked windows and broken roof tiles decorating the surrounding area as a result. The door was dented in a few places, the silver numbers hanging on by a single screw. The mailbox was leaning at an angle that shouldn't have been possible. The gate wasn't in sight anymore. A hubcap was lying on the lawn. There were a few people walking down the street, their hoods pulled over their heads and their hands stuffed into the pockets, clearly ignoring the ruckus that came from inside.

Brock was sat in his room, a vast sum of money displayed before him in a briefcase he wasn't expecting to receive. Papers were strewn across the desk with red circles and crosses covering paragraphs of text, mostly signed with a thin ballpoint pen. A corkboard with red string and a variety of photos hung above the desk, some pages slightly yellowed with age. A bottle of whiskey was beside the wall, a crystal glass half-full in front of it. A glass ashtray was next to the bottle, black ashes coating the bottom. The light was dimmed, the lampshade turning it a slight brown. The bed was neatly made, the pillows fluffed and angled as though it were a hotel. Clothes were neatly folded and stacked in the corner, a shoe box sat beside them. The window was cracked slightly, allowing the night-time air to quietly slip into the room and cool it down from it being closed off all night. The curtains blew slightly in the breeze, the thin curtains catching the flickering light that came from outside. A thin layer of fog settled outside. 

He lifted a cigarette to his lips and used a silver lighter to bring it to life. He puffed out a cloud of smoke as he stared down at the cash before him. He ran his other hand through his hair and sighed quietly, slowly moving his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. His grey tie was loose around the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, his blazer thrown across the white sheets of his bed. His foot tapped against the floor in an almost annoyingly uneven tempo. He seemed to be showering in stress, not a single inch of him untouched by it. 

It sounded like a party was going on outside his door, music and laughter flowing through the small crack beneath it. He could practically smell the alcohol radiating from the people who paced outside, their laughs and jokes making him do little more than roll his eyes. They were celebrating for the sake of it, after a pretty uneventful week and little more than three ordered ventures out of the house, they felt that they deserved to have some kind of fun. It was like the first high school party someone had thrown: shitty music, no decoration, barely enough alcohol to keep up with the consumption rate, and not enough people to play any games other than truth or dare.

Someone screamed along to wonderwall. 

Two knocks came to the door before the room was flooded with light. Brock turned away from the cash, taking his cigarette from his lips and coughing out a breath of smoke as he tried to greet them. 

"What's that?" Tyler asked, raising an eyebrow at the briefcase behind him. The door slammed shut.

He wore a plain white shirt and a thin black jacket over it, his hair held back with a pair of Evan's sunglasses. His electric eyes were more subdued than usual, their intimidating nature dulled down to something softer for the first time in a few weeks. He swayed slightly as he stood, clearly having had more than a few drinks in that night. 

Brock shook his head as the smoke finally left the air he was breathing. "Som-Something I don't need you to stress over." 

Tyler folded his arms. "You're the one stressing, Brock." 

"I'm allowed to stress." Brock muttered, the cigarette hitting his lips and the nicotine bringing a form of relief to his system. "Look, just... Go have fun, Ty. I-I'll be out in a few more minutes." 

Tyler frowned. "We're having fun now, Brock. You're allowed to have fun with us."

"I'll be out soon, okay?" Brock let another cloud of smoke leave his lips, his brown eyes drifting closed for a few second. "Promise." 

"You better." Tyler muttered, his hand wrapping around the doorknob to let himself out. 

Brock turned back to the papers and pinched the bridge of his nose again. He crushed the cigarette in the glass ash-tray beside the whiskey bottle as the door slammed shut for a second time. He lifted the glass to his lips and downed the rest, the burning sensation slowly drifting through his veins and snapping him back to where he was sat. He leaned forwards and circled one final paragraph in red marker, throwing the pen to the desk once the ends joined. The lid of the briefcase was slammed shut and the golden locks snapped shut before he pushed himself out of the uncomfortable office chair and to his feet. 

A little fun couldn't hurt.


	4. Welcome to the family

The breeze from the ocean was cold, nippy as some would say. A bitter mix of salt and chemicals from nearby factories drifted through the night, leaving a scowl on people's faces as they tried to get home before the witching hour fell upon the city. They weren't scared of witches, per say, they were scared of the actual people who roamed the streets after complete darkness fell. Scared of the people who stood in alleyways, armed with enough cocaine to buy a mansion and more weapons than one person could handle. Scared of the people who killed as though it were a sport rather than a crime, relentless and without an ounce of regret filling their body afterwards. Scared of the people who drove cars that seemed to go three times faster than the speed of sound for the sake of it. 

Twenty minutes passed before the group reached the rendezvous point. Jonathan had almost fallen overboard while he was trying to get seawater into a cup, claiming that he was going to catch a fish. David and John were both hunched over laptops, their fingers flying across the keys faster than anyone could comprehend. Brock was sat in the cabin, his legs crossed and his eyes set on a few pieces of paper lying before him. A pen was sat in his hand, the ink running low. Tyler was driving, since he was the only person who actually knew how to. 

The water was slightly louder now that they were away from the shore, the only sound being the slightly metallic ring that it made upon hitting the boat. A few birds yelled from above. Nobody else was out on the ocean, which wasn't out-of-the-ordinary considering that it was almost three in the morning. It was a strange time to meet, and an even stranger place for an exchange to take place. Brock understood, though, with the new round of cops in the city it was far safer to be in international water than it was to be on land. He knew of far too many drug deals that took place in the ocean just to avoid them.

Brock had changed out of his suit long before they got the call to go on the boat, which left him in an old t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants he'd found at the bottom of his drawer. His hair was falling over his face, since it was pointless to take a pair of sunglasses out in the middle of the night, and his tired eyes were on full display through the window panes that lined the back of the cabin. His foot was tapping an out-of-tempo tune against the metal floor, inconsistent and downright annoying to anyone who wasn't used to it. His pen was matching the tapping of his foot, a dark dot appearing against the document he was supposed to be signing. His phone buzzed every now and then beside him, notifications from deals and the occasional flirty text from Brian popping up on the default lock screen, all unread. 

Two knocks came to the door and cold ocean air flowed into the cabin. His gaze lifted from the black dot on the page to see David looking as though he'd dove headfirst into the water. It wouldn't surprise anyone if he had. 

"Y-You're gonna wanna see this shite." David held the door open and turned to look outside, panic lacing his every move. 

"Is it something I could find on the internet?" Brock stood up and groaned quietly, a frown appearing over his lips. He pulled his suit jacket over Brian's tank, goosebumps appearing over his arms from the sudden wash of cold that covered him from head to toe. 

"No." 

Brock left the cabin with David not even two steps behind. His shoes clicked against the floor, quiet compared to the waves washing against the boat. Jonathan and Tyler were both leaning over the side, John was balancing a laptop over his knee and holding a radio between his ear and his shoulder. 

"What is it?" Brock walked over to where the other two were leaning and held onto the silver rail that ran along the entire boat, his tired gaze moving down to the black ocean below. 

"A-A damn person!" Jonathan leaned further over, his legs kicking off the ground to give him extra-reach. David grabbed the back of his blue jacket to stop him falling in. "I-I seen them with m-my own damned eyes!" 

"Where?" Brock leaned towards the ocean, his eyes narrowing to try and see what the other two were looking for. "Where, Jonathan?!" 

"There!" Jonathan pulled against David's hold as he reached down to the ocean, his tattooed hands submerging fully before he was pulled back on deck by David, who was overly concerned for his wellbeing for once. 

Sure enough, there was someone in the water. Pale, freckled features and a mess of brow hair floating barely an inch above the surface. Brock shrugged off his jacket and let it fall to the deck, the sound of it hitting bringing a whole round of questions that nobody was prepared to ask or answer. He leaned even further over and let his arms dip into the cold water, a gasp leaving his lips from the shock of the temperature. He was in the water before anyone could do anything about it. The cold was a shock to the system, but he ignored it for long enough for the adrenaline to keep him alive. He propelled himself towards the person, saltwater stinging at the numerous cuts that secretly littered his body from his solo-outings. It burned his tired eyes, and the taste was far from something he'd recommend to a friend, but he could always brush his teeth and wash out his eyes when he got back on the boat. 

His arm wrapped around their body, and the first thing he managed to find was a slow heartrate. The current was trying to take them further out towards the inevitable death that awaited them at the bottom, towards the unknown that sat inches beneath where they were floating. The water attacked him from every angle as he made the short journey back, his body slowly growing tired from years of not going deep enough into any body of water to need to swim. They were easier to... drag through the water than he'd expected, considering the last time he'd tried to bring someone out of water it had taken him thirty minutes and help from his swim instructor.

He made sure to wait where the side of the boat was smaller than it was elsewhere, knowing that it would be easier to get back on from there than it would be from anywhere else. Jonathan shoved David off of his jacket and almost slipped over with how fast he ran to meet them, Tyler less than a stride behind him. Brock clutched onto Tyler's arm as though his life depended on it, letting the other be pulled onboard before he even dreamed of letting himself up. Jonathan hauled them onto the deck, with help from David, and laid them out on the wooden surface. Tyler helped Brock on, pulling him into a tight hug almost immediately after. 

He was no older than sixteen. Despite not being awake, he had a somewhat innocent look about them. His clothes were clearly hand-me-downs, holes littering the material and the design nothing close to what other teens were wearing. His hair was slightly straightened by the weight of the water in it, though it acted as though it was curly from how it was lying. 

"I-Is he o-ok-ay?" Brock was shivering, his breathing slightly uneven from the dying adrenaline that was walking through his veins. 

"He's breathin', so... That's good." Jonathan nodded. "W-we need t-to get him inside before he freezes to death." 

Brock pulled away from Tyler's grip and pushed his soaked hair out of his face, taking a few deep breaths before nodding to give the go-ahead. 

A further thirty minutes passed before Brock was changed and had his hair pinned back with a pair of David's sunglasses. He'd paced the boat at least three times, a blanket wrapped over his bare shoulders since he'd covered the kid in his jacket to keep him warm. He'd yelled at Tyler and John to get blankets and heat-pads for him when he was able to stop stuttering his speech, settling for the spare jackets he'd brought and a thin bedsheet used for things he didn't need to describe. He'd laid him over a metal bench in the hallway outside of his cabin, not wanting for the first thing the kid saw to be photos of blood and bullet holes littering his desk. 

He started to stir slightly as Brock was replying to one of Brian's slightly more worried texts, assuring the Irishman that he was fine despite having taken a quick dip in the pacific. He turned the phone off and placed it down beside him, pushing himself to his feet as the kids' glazed eyes slowly fluttered between open and closed. 

"You're safe now." Brock smiled, crouching down to meet his eye. "The name's Moo. Welcome to the family."


	5. Apple

Smitty sat in the strange room with a soft blanket pulled over his shoulders and his legs pulled up to his chest. The bed was comfortable compared to what he had back at his moms place, and the pillows felt like clouds beneath his head when he eventually managed to sleep. His arms were wrapped around his legs as the yelling continued, his eyes were squeezed shut. 

It'd been a week. A week since he woke up on a boat that he didn't fall off. A week since he was hidden away from the world in an attempt to keep him 'safe'. A whole fucking week of being on his own more than he had in years, with the few people he had met not staying around for more than five minutes at a time. 

The few people that he had met were nice to him. Jonathan had made a few jokes on the drive back to the apartment, and he'd showed off a bat in the back of Tyler's car. David had sat on the other side of the door and talked to him when he barricaded it with a chair. Tyler came into his room and made sure that he was drinking, sometimes by hitting a plastic cup down on the bedside cabinet and other times by placing a glass on the floor beside him. Brock made him cookies and left them outside the door. John sometimes came in and showed him how to play around with code on the program that his IT teacher had been throwing at him since the seventh grade. 

He was hungry. Evan had forced him to have a sandwich a few days ago and even then, he'd only eaten that because Evan was clearly pissed off. The cookies had slowly started to get better over the past few days, with the edges being less charcoal-y and the chocolate becoming sweeter than it was bitter. An empty mug sat on the cabinet beside him, the bitter smell still hanging low over the room. 

Brock had told him not to leave the room until he got back, but... he was going to die if he didn't eat something. He frowned at the closed door in front of him – it would be easy to pick if it was locked. He'd already picked the front door open on his third night there, and he'd discovered that he could get onto the roof if he went all the way up the stairs. Nobody knew about it, yet, and he intended on keeping it that way for as long as he physically could. 

Two minutes passed before he got the courage to leave the room. His steps were quiet. He balled the ends of his sleeves up in his hands and folded his arms over his chest in an attempt to keep himself warm and near-invisible. He could get an apple and be back in the room before anyone knew that he was gone. 

"I just... I don't like the fact that there's a literal child hanging out with us. It's not safe or fair or healthy for a kid to be around shit like this all day, every day."

"You're saying that like it's a bad thing that they found him?" 

"I'm not saying that it was a bad thing, Brian. I'm saying that he should be in math class with his friends, not hiding in a strangers bedroom while everyone around him has innocent blood on their fucking hands!"

"They weren't innocent, Ohm." 

Smitty opened the door slightly and peaked through the gap, a concerned gaze watching over the three. Ohm was wearing a grey suit and there was a thin grey material hanging loosely around his neck. Brian was wearing a vest over a shirt that had the top two buttons undone. They were both standing around a counter, a bowl of fruit in the middle and various guns lying around it. They seemed to be having a stand-off, of sorts, both glaring at each other across the counter with their hands drifting scarily close to the knives that sat between the guns.

Ohm glared at him. He picked up and apple and rubbed it against his chest. "We're in the mafia, Bri, we get innocent people caught all the damned time and we both know it." 

Smitty froze. The mafia.

"The rich pricks!" Mason stabbed his knife into the wall as the pair walked back into the house. He was pissed, to put it simply. Pissed at the fact that their single job for that week had been compromised by some guy with a glorified Jason mask and a bat. "When they're gone, we're gonna be kings, Smit. Fucking kings."

On second thoughts, he didn't need that apple. He could hold off eating until Brock was asleep, then he could sneak through to the kitchen and grab something to give him enough energy to get up and down the stairs. 

Fucking kings. He scoffed as the door to his room shut. How could he be a king when he was sitting beneath the throne? Disruption broke kingdoms down, right? Maybe he could start his own revolution. If he did enough stuff wrong, they'd have no choice but to kick him to the curb. They'd have to let him go, because they wouldn't kill a kid on purpose. 

Would they?


	6. I'll take him

It was cold in the city. Fog settled in the air, hanging heavily over the already tense atmosphere that comfortable sat where it was used to. Headlights cut through the vapour, blinding anyone who wasn't watching where they were moving. Occasional gunshots rang through the air, slicing the sound of backfiring cars and loud music in two. A few people yelled from their windows about the noise, the sound of it slamming creating a short-lived silence. 

Brock was sitting at his desk, Tyler and Brian opposite. Papers and files were lying across the desk, photos of bloodied bodies and empty shells held together with paper clips. Red circles and crosses were drawn across papers, a few small doodles littered across a few unused documents, an unfinished game of hangman scrawled over the back of one of the sheets. Cigarette smoke floated around the room, white trails just visible in the light that managed to make its way through the partially closed blinds. Three glasses of whiskey sat on the desk, two untouched and one almost empty. The dim lamp was the only true source of light in the room, with the main lightbulb having broken a few days ago. 

"I don't let Jonathan anywhere close to my place, so I point blank refuse to let a kid in." Brian shook his head and leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, folding his arms. "I'm here half the fuckin' time, so it's pointless putting him with me." 

Tyler frowned, straightening his blue tie over his patterned white shirt. "I'd happily let him stay with me, but I think Craig's starting to catch on a-and I don't want him getting caught out." 

"He can't stay with Jon, Luke and Ryan." Brock drew another cross on a document, biting his lower lip as he thought. "Evan is a cop and David has too much information lying around his place for me to want to put him with him." 

"Why can't he stay with the guys?" Tyler lifted one of the untouched glasses to his lips and took a sip, coughing quietly when he put it down. 

Brian laughed, rolling his eyes. "Their house is like the makers of Saw snorted crack for three days straight and decided to build a fucking house."

"Okay, so... John's the only option we got left." Brock leaned back in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ty, call him in a-and try to keep Smitty out." 

"Gotcha." Tyler stood up and was out of the room before anyone could say anything else. 

Brian stood up and moved behind the desk, his hands wrapping around Brock's shoulders. He rubbed small circles into his tensed muscles, humming as Brock's head rested against his chest with a small smile sat on his lips. He stopped giving the small massage and pushed Brock's hair away out of his closed dark brown eyes, ones that had previously been filled with enough colour to light up a room. Eyes that had previously been so full of compassion and life, eyes that practically everyone could trust. Brian had fallen for those eyes within moments of catching sight of them. His hair was slightly greasy from not showering in two days, tangles appearing wherever Brian tried to run his hands. A white scar was across his cheek from an accident that he didn't talk about all too much.

"You're doin' good for him, darl." Brian hummed quietly, drawing small circles into his shoulders. "You're better at this shit than anyone else could be in your situation. He wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you, Brock. Sending him out to live with John is the best option we have to keep us all safe." 

"I know, Bri." Brock's dark eyes opened slightly, a frown wavering across his lips as Brian pulled at a particularly big knot in his hair. "I trust John with my life, but... I-It wouldn't hurt to keep him around for a little longer, would it?" 

"It'd hurt his growth as a person. A little longer turns into a month and then that turns into a year and that year turns into forever." Brian shook his head. "And as much as I hate to say this, if one of us does get seriously hit in a job, who's gonna look out for him?"

"I hate it when you talk sense." Brock huffed, sitting upright and rolling his eyes. "I'm supposed to be the sensible guy in this relationship." 

Two knocks came to the door before Brian could reply, which Brock was thankful for. The small blush that had been growing up his face quickly disappeared as John walked in. Brian didn't move from where he was stood, still drawing small circles into Brock's shoulders. John took a seat, an anxious look about him. His hair was loosely tied back and his shirt was unbuttoned at the top, a pink tie loosely hanging from the collar. He held himself close, his heterochromatic eyes darting around the office as though he had never been in the room before, which was far from true. 

The door slammed shut. John jumped. 

"Whatever this is about, it wasn't me." John stated, his palms lying flat over his knees. 

"It's not about whatever you did, John." Brock smiled, shrugging Brian's hands away. "I-I want to ask you something important, and I need an honest answer from you."

"Ask away." John relaxed slightly, his shoulders dropping from where they'd been held. 

"Can you take Smitty in for us?" Brock leaned over the desk, his elbows resting against the table and his hands covering a photo filled with blood. "It's a lot to ask and I'll pay for everything he needs, but I can't keep him here anymore." 

"Sure." John shrugged, as though it was the easiest question to answer in the world. "I don't mind keepin' an eye on him." 

"Seriously?" Brock's jaw dropped slightly, slightly shocked from how easy it had been. He was expecting him to put up a fight for his own space, like Jonathan had when Ryan moved in with him. 

"Was I supposed to say no?" John raised an eyebrow, his gaze slowly shifting between Brock and Brian. 

"No, you answered perfectly fine." Brian leaned on the back of Brock's chair and smiled. "You can go back to whatever you were doing now." 

"Thanks...?" John stood up and made his way out of the room, making eye-contact with Brock one last time before the door shut behind him. He was smiling. 

Brian ruffled Brock's hair and pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head. "You made the right choice in John, darl. He's gonna be okay."


	7. Masked Saviour

Being held hostage in a convenience store was definitely not how Craig had expected his day to go. 

It was supposed to be a simple job, one that he could do without Evan constantly hovering over him. The dispatcher had called it a ‘dispute that was threatening to turn violent’ in a liquor store downtown, a man and a woman arguing over a lottery ticket at the checkout and scaring the clerk to the point of her having to call the police to sort it out for her. 

He’d obviously jumped at the opportunity after having a day filled with nothing but traffic violations and going over evidence for crimes that weren’t worth the pursuit. Sure, it wasn’t exciting, but it was better than sitting at his desk and spinning in circles on his chair, and he swore that he would go insane if he had to spent another minute in that damned office. In the heat of the moment, he’d left his phone and his radio in the squad car. 

It was empty, when he walked through the doors. Chart music played from speakers, boppy songs playing quietly over the somewhat peacefulness of the store. Bottles glittered in their cabinets, clear liquids stood idly in their hold. Cigarette cartons were sitting on shelves, bright colours dragging attention towards them so that they would be bought. The lights were bright, a few bugs humming softly as they floated around the bulbs. The white floor tiles were covered in dirt and grime, a clear lack of care having gone into cleaning the place before it opened. 

He’d called out the names that he’d been given by dispatch, his right-hand drifting scarily close to his pistol as he was met by more and more silence in reply. His steps were loud against the grime covered tiles. 

That’s when it had all started to go downhill. A set of even louder footsteps closed in on him, heavy breathing sending shivers down his spine and sending shooting anxiety flying up his nerves in no time at all. He’d turned far too slowly for his reactions to kick in and was met to a gun inches away from his face. Craig dropped his gun out of fear, wide eyes focused mainly on the barrel of the gun that would end up killing him if he let it. 

He cursed at himself for being so stupid in the moment. Scott or Marcel wouldn’t have done that at all, they would’ve used their ‘smarts’ and their stupidly close bond to get themselves out of it, like they always did. Evan would’ve tried to calm the situation with the same voice he used when he was comforting kids, mimicking the gun being lowered as he spoke. 

Now, Craig was tied up behind the checkout, his hands painfully bonded together with a rope that didn’t pass any form of safety standards and his mouth shut with a piece of pathetically ripped duct tape. He’d tried to give them advice on how to rip it properly while they were arguing over it and had received a murderous glare that told him to shut his mouth before he ended up getting shot. The gun was still aimed at him, the dark barrel leaving the silent and bitter choice of life and death in his tied hands. 

He prayed to whatever God there was that someone would come to save him. Hell, he’d even excuse Marcel and Scott driving through a window if it meant that he’d be let out of his binds. 

“What the fuck do you mean the Mafia is on the way?” One of his captors, a woman with platinum blonde hair and ruby red lips yelled at the man who Craig had presumed to be her husband. 

That question sent fear screaming through his body at a mile a minute. Had he managed to get himself caught up in a war between the two people who’d practically kidnapped him and the goddamn mafia?

“Which one is it?” Her husband, a relatively tall man with deep auburn hair and bright green eyes, asked. His voice was loud, demanding almost, and filled with a nervous kind of anger that Craig recognised from the guilty party in a court case.

“The fucking banana bus.” She threw her arms down in defeat, her ruby lips agape and her dull green eyes slowly filling with defeat. She turned to Craig. “What the hell do you have to do with the goddamned mafia?!” 

Craig, unable to verbally reply to what she was saying, had to shake his head. He had nothing to do with the mafia, as far as he was concerned. He’d heard stories of them, of the things they did and the people who’d ended up dead at their hands... He was fucking terrified of them. 

Ten minutes of yelling and screaming passed before the door was kicked open. He couldn’t see who it was from where he was sat, but that didn’t stop the knot of anxiety in his stomach from tightening and tightening until he felt like he was going to throw up. 

“Wildcat... Nice to-to see you after so-so long.” The auburn haired man pulled at the collar of his shirt, sweat dripping down his face in beads.

“You have five minutes to get as far away as you physically can before I give my colleague the clearance to shoot you both dead.” An unfamiliar voice said, loud and clear. He sounded confident, as though he was more than prepared to kill people if it was necessary. Smooth, cold with a quiet hint of softness in his undertone.

The people didn’t waste their time in getting away. They ran, their footsteps getting quieter and quieter as they screamed at one another for being ‘stupid’ about their approach.

Craig wondered if their bodies would end up in the morgue, and then shook his head at such a thought. 

The man, Wildcat, came around the counter and placed his gun down beside the till. He wore a pig mask with mesh eyes, a faint hint of a strikingly bright blue making its way through the material. He wore a white shirt with a faded graphic of a cat on the chest and a golden chain hung low around his neck. A pair of black jeans were held up with a black belt with a golden buckle, the knees completely ripped and a few areas on the shins covered in what looked to be knife slashes. Black boots rose just past his ankles, the grey laces tied neatly in double knots. 

“Can I?” Wildcat crouched beside him, reaching closer to the tape that covered his mouth. 

Craig nodded. 

Without even giving the decency of a countdown, Wildcat ripped the grey tape off of Craig’s mouth and seemed to bite back a laugh when the Brit let out a yelp of pain. He threw it aside and brushed his hand on his legs, as though his job was done. 

“You’re gonna have to lean forward if you want me to untie the rope.” Wildcat sat on the floor, rather than crouching for the entire time, and crossed his legs as though he were still in the first grade. “Or turn around... Whichever one won’t get me arrested.” 

“Why shouldn’t I arrest you?” Craig silently cursed himself, again, for his nervous sarcasm coming out. 

“Because I saved your life?” Wildcat tilted his head. He seemed to smile, even though Craig couldn’t see his face.

“I had it under control.” Craig bit back, turning himself slightly to allow the masked man to cut the ropes. 

“Keep telling yourself that, buddy.” Wildcat laughed, shaking his head as his hands moved towards Craig’s to start untying him. 

Wildcat was surprisingly gentle as he worked to untie Craig, his fingers soft whenever they brushed against his forearm or grazed the reddened palms of his hands. He talked to himself the whole time, muttering curses and small reminders for things that Craig had no interest in knowing about. In any other situation, he’d be logging down every bit of information he could find on the Mafia to use to his advantage later on. He wasn’t sure why he avoided doing it this time. 

“All clear.” Wildcat stood up and nodded once at the cop before him, his bright eyes softening slightly. “You... You weren’t serious about arresting me, were you?” 

“No.” Craig rubbed his wrists and laughed quietly. “I don’t need the fucking mafia on my ass after the week I’ve had, Wildcat.” 

“Well, I don’t know your name, but I hope your week gets better.” Wildcat took his gun from the counter and nodded. “See you around, I guess.”


	8. Wait and See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this point onwards, the story takes place two-three years after the events of previous chapters.

Brock sat at his desk with a crystal glass beside him and a yellow file under a flickering lamp. Nicotine danced around the room and smoke rose from the glass ashtray, a dying cigarette crushed to nothing but a pile of burning ashes over three others. His head was in his hands, a silver ring on his right-hand glittering slightly in the faint light that made its way through the grey blinds covering the glass panes of his windows. His worn leather chair was more comfortable than not, which was starting to become a problem as he'd slept in it for three nights straight. The soft chairs on the other side of his desk each had a yellow pillow on the seat, since the backs weren't comfortable without them – and Brock liked to know that his company was comfortable before he got down to business. The clock above the door ticked loudly through the silence that filled the room.

Rain bounced from the windows, the faint sound of cars driving past the apartment block lulling him into a sense of safeness. Fog clouded whatever vision he would've had from his top-floor apartment, painting the entire city in a layer of thick mist that made it difficult for anyone without a torch to see. The only thing missing was the crackling lightning and shaking thunder, then he would've felt right at home. 

A thinly spread frown sat over his lips, a burning sensation covering them from the glass of whiskey he'd drank in one go. His bloodshot eyes scanned the paper before him too many times to count, almost always misreading a word or skipping entire lines before he noticed that there as a continuity error, which lead to him reading the entire thing from the start. He pulled at the roots of his hair to try and gain his focus back, but only managed to make his head hurt. 

He stood up from the black leather seat and stretched his arms above his head. His dark red tie hung loosely around his neck, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and the sleeves rolled just past his elbows. A silver Rolex sat on his wrist. His blazer was hanging over the dark oak coatrack beside the door, the door was shut. A small table sat beside the door, a bottle filled with aged whiskey and a black pistol sitting side-by-side on it. He eyed the crystal glass on his desk, and then the whiskey on the table. 

"Can't hurt." He muttered to himself, flipping the file closed and picking the crystal up from where it sat. 

His polished shoes clicked against the hardwood floor as he made his way across the room. He placed the glass on the table and uncapped the whiskey bottle, nearly filling the glass to the top. Despite knowing that he wasn't supposed to do that, he shrugged it off since nobody was there to tell him otherwise. The ice had melted long ago and his whiskey stones were still in the freezer, so he had to settle for a room temperature drink. The glass was lifted to his lips and the drink burned the entire way down, but in a good way. It was a damn good whiskey, he decided. 

He made his way back to his desk and placed the crystal down. He stood over the file rather than sitting, his hands pressed flat against the wood and his eyes set on the yellow card before him. He opened it again and stared down the information with a glazed over look to his eyes. The clock read 5:45PM, which gave him more than enough time, but that didn't stop him from freaking out. 

TARGET – GREGORY BASKIN, CEO.

REWARD - $40,000

CONDITIONS – NO WITNESSES

Brock frowned. That gave him just over a day to organise a task that would usually take him a week. He was by no means a leader, despite what everyone else said, and that only made his worrisome mind escalate itself even higher than it usually did. The yellow file was closed. He sat down in his all too comfortable seat. 

He opened his desk drawer and pushed a pistol aside to reach his cigarettes and lighter. His fingers brushed past a few loose bullets as he pulled them out, the cold metal sending sparks through his arms and into his ever-so-slightly drunken mind. He placed the cigarette between his lips and opened the lighter, clicking it a few times before the flame danced to life and set the end on fire. It clicked shut and hit the desk softer than it had that week.

He pulled the cigarette from between his lips to take another swig of the whiskey, before placing it right back where it had been before. It was by no means a healthy habit, one that his mother would scold him severely for, but that wouldn't stop him. It wasn't like she was going to miraculously smell the smoke and alcohol from the other end of the country and even if she could, he didn't care in that moment. 

"Shit." He whispered, running the situation over in his mind again. And again. And again. It only got worse as he pondered it further, impossible situations sprinting through his mind faster than he could comprehend. 

He'd been organising hits since he was 18, and that gave him a good seven years in the field. Ever since he'd split from his old group, his outgoing nature had subsided and his concern for his own group grew higher and higher every day. His newfound wariness at the idea managed to make him even more worried than he had been before, and lead to him downing his whiskey again. The burning sensation flowed through his veins and warmed him up in an instant, and he didn't seem to mind. He shut his eyes and let the sensation take over for a few minutes, shutting his mind up under a fiery feeling that didn't seem to go away. 

Chatter flowed under the door and made his eyes drift open. He wasn't sure who it was, exactly, but he recognised the tones being used well enough to know that he didn't have to worry. Slowly, he dragged himself out of the fiery pit he'd been sat in and forced himself out of the chair, crushing his cigarette in the glass ashtray as to not leave a trail of the stuff following him out of his office. He decided to take his tie off fully, rather than leaving it to hang – he'd rather look like a mess who cared, than a mess who didn't. 

His polished shoes clicked against the floor as he left his office. The door clicked quietly behind him, something that he always checked so he wouldn't wake anyone else up during his all-night planning sessions, or alert anyone that he was just heading to bed when people were just starting to wake up. It wasn't often that the entire group stayed in his apartment, but when they did, he found himself pacing the place to make sure that they were all okay. He'd make sure that there was a drink beside each sleeping person before he even attempted to go to sleep himself and would make breakfast in the morning rather than have his usual sleep in. This time, however, there was a maximum of maybe... Three others in the place, which was no surprise to him. It was a miracle that there weren't more, really.

"We can't put a cow in the fucking freezer, Jonathan." He heard Tyler say, and that sentence alone made him debate turning back to his office. 

"Why the fuck not?" 

"Because he said so." He heard Evan hum.

"What the hell do you need 'many, many candles' for, Brian?" Tyler asked again, only making Brock's urge to turn even higher than before.

"Things." Brian replied, glancing up from his nails to see Brock walking towards them. His smug grin was instantly replaced by a pout. "Brock would let me have candles." 

"No, I would not." Brock rolled his eyes as he walked towards the island, a quiet laugh leaving his lips. "After the blowtorch accident, I refuse to let you light any kind of fire in my home." 

"So, you're saying that I can get many, many candles for my place?" 

"Limit yourself to fifty and you can knock yourself out." Brock smiled at the Irishman, who seemed happy in his persuasion efforts, and moved around to see what Tyler was reading from. 

A grocery list was sat on the island, a bright red whiteboard marker sat beside it to cover over the cursive on the paper. He read a few of the items and instantly knew who'd wrote it, from both the handwriting and the ideas. He uncapped the marker and dragged it across the 'canon balls' suggestion, writing 'DEFINITELY NOT' in all caps right next to it. He did the same for 'blowtorch' and 'PVC pipe'. He didn't even want to know what they wanted a PVC pipe for, but he knew for a fact that they weren't getting one. 

"I-... I only wanna look cool." Jonathan frowned, tapping his fingers on the top of the slightly bloodied bat that sat beside him. "I-I mean, I need a-a damned canon ball to look cool 'n- 'nd scary!"

Evan pushed himself up onto the kitchen counter and bit into an apple, ignoring the juice that spilled down his pale blue shirt. "You're already fucking scary." 

"Thank you!" 

"That isn't a compliment, Jon." Tyler leaned over the counter and pulled at the roots of his hair. The cuts and bruises on his arms stood out in the late-afternoon light that flowed through the open windows. A pair of black sunglasses sat on the collar of his shirt, hanging loosely along with a golden necklace that he refused to take off. 

"I'll take it as constructive criticism." Jonathan leaned back on his stool and folded his arms, letting his bat fall to the ground and almost making Evan fall onto the floor with the sudden noise. 

Nobody wanted to argue with him, so they left him to think of it as whatever he wanted to. It couldn't hurt.

Brian shared a glance with Brock for a few seconds and fixed his tie, straightening the material of his suit jacket as they held eye contact. His Mediterranean gaze was almost hypnotising and reminded Brock of how he could get anything he wanted with very little effort. Not that he was complaining, but he made himself look away, so he didn't end up hoarding an entire stores worth of candles in his home. Again. That man had a strange obsession with candles that Brock was yet to understand. 

He stood and listened to their arguing for a few more minutes, taking his time to subtly scribble out Jonathan's scrawls on the grocery list that had turned into more of a deluded Christmas list when he read it over. Evan swung his legs on the counter, his running shoes hitting the cupboards and being the only sound besides the pointless argument. He leaned over the counter, his head pounding and the fire in his veins dulling to nothing but smoke, and sighed quiet enough to be ignored. He ran his hands through the tangles of his hair and brushed it out of his face, holding it back as he straightened himself up. He stretched again. 

"Tired?" Brian asked, a smirk dancing on his lips. 

"Of you? Yes." Brock replied, snarky enough to make the rest of the group laugh.

"You do look tired." Tyler added. 

"I'm fine." Brock let his arms fall back to his sides and rolled his wrists, biting back a yawn that had started to build in his throat. "Just... thinking." 

"Thinkin' is dangerous." Jonathan muttered. 

Brock nodded in agreement. "Anything is dangerous if you do to much of it." 

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Brian asked, leaning closer to Brock and rested his head in his hands. 

"Things that don't concern you, Terroriser." Brock started to walk towards the window, his shoes clicking against the wooden floor. 

There was nothing special outside, other than the high rises that towered above everything else. The hills were usually visible, but now all that could be see was their distant shadow. Cars beeping and speeding through the congested streets. Sirens rang from below, their piercing shrieks being more like a distant song than their usual threat. A few lights flashed through the fog but didn't reveal anything that would be interesting to anyone looking. The late afternoon light barely sat above the top of the fog, though it was covered by grey clouds and guarded with a faint blue hue behind it. 

Brian followed him over, a slight glare glinting in his eyes from the use of his codename. He wore a pair of grey slippers, so his steps were near silent, but his presence was still noticed by Brock. Brian's hands rested on Brock's shoulders, rubbing small circles into them with his thumbs and his breaths pressing softly against the nape of his neck. 

The others slowly departed from the room, Jonathan swinging his bat around his shoulders, Tyler seeming resistant to go near him and Evan's hand hovering over his taster. Their conversation continued outside the door, their laughs and jokes barely having time to settle before the next was said.

Brian hummed quietly, his hands slowly working their way down to his waist, where they rested softly. Brock kept his stare on the city below, his hands splayed flat against the panes of glass masked by a shield of foggy vapour. 

Brian pressed a warm kiss to the back of his neck and rested his head on his boss' shoulder. "You see all that?"

"Fog and high rises?" Brock replied, knowing that his answer would receive an eyeroll. 

Brian mumbled, his words softer than they were intended to be. "This is gonna be our city, darl." 

Brock turned away from his trance over the widow to look at the other, a distant look in his eyes and a small smile on his face. "How've you figured that out?" 

"Just wait and see."


	9. Not a Kid

Smitty pushed open the door to John's office without knocking, something that the Canadian had gotten an obnoxious knack for over the past few weeks. All the lights were off in the room and the only source of light was the abundance of monitors that were stacked against the far wall, giving the room a blue glow about it. He let the door close behind him and stood in the entryway for a minute or two, listening to the therapeutic taps of fingers against a keyboard and watching text flash by far too fast for him to read. Then his gaze moved to the figure in the seat, his tired eyes softening slightly and a small smile sitting over his lips. He hugged his left arm close to his body, his head tilted ever so slightly towards the ground. 

It hadn't been a good day.

"I'm busy." John muttered, not turning to greet Smitty properly.

"How busy?" Smitty dragged himself further into the room. The dirt and dried crimson stains on his cuffed dress trousers revealed itself slightly in the glowing blue. His bloody, unbuttoned shirt was already visible from a mile away, but the light only escalated his visibility further. 

"Very." 

Smitty sat on the messy bed and folded his arms. He hated how much he craved attention after hits, but he'd be damned all the way to hell and back if he didn't get it. It hadn't been one of his easy runs either, he'd had to shoot from a moving vehicle with a shaky hand and a group of cops practically riding on the bumper of Tyler's car. It had still been a success, considering that there was at least 100 yards between the pair, but his stress levels had reached a new high in the moments following. His gun had almost run out of ammo as he was exchanging fire with the cops, Tyler had almost crashed into a lamppost at an intersection, and he'd lost his favourite pair of glasses when he split from Tyler and climbed a building to get away. His knees had bled after he tripped over a brick and landed on a few glass shards, and his hands had been covered in gravel from how he'd landed. 

Definitely not a good day.

"Can you... Not be busy for a few minutes?" 

"I'm working on something, Smit." John's gaze didn't move from his monitors, and the tapping on his keyboard went from therapeutic to annoying faster than Smitty realised. 

He fell back onto the couch against the opposite wall and pulled one of the pillows over his chest, hugging it closely. He'd dropped his tie at the front door of their small home, the primary colours standing out from the dark grey that coated the place. His running shoes were halfway down the hallway after he'd kicked them off to get comfortable. His white hair fell over his flame-filled oak eyes, the hairspray doing nothing much other than sticking strands of his curls together. His fingerless gloves letting him feel the soft material but shielded his cut-up hands from any more pain than they had to endure.

"You just gonna sit there 'nd watch?" John turned in his chair to look at the Canadian, one of his eyebrows raised and a small frown on his lips. 

"I'm not watching you, I'm hugging a pillow and staring at the ceiling." He raised his head up from where he was lying, "There's a difference."

John turned back to his mess of monitors and stared intently at the closest one to him, his expression unreadable for a multitude of reasons. "You're distracting me either way." 

Smitty was barely a year out of high school, but his ability with a gun made him seem much older and much more desirable. He could often be found sitting alone on the roof of Brock's apartment building, his headphones playing music as loud as they would go and his head resting against his knees. He was almost always quiet after a hit, shrinking right back into the shell that he'd arrived in. He didn't mention his friends outside of the mafia, which lead to everyone wondering about if he actually had any friends. Whenever it was brought up, the teen snapped and threw whatever was in his hands at the person who mentioned it. 

Smitty placed the pillow back where it had been before and slowly stood up, a frown settling on his face. "I-I'll go." 

John didn't turn to say bye. 

The door clicked shut behind Smitty, and the teen was left to find a new way to keep himself occupied. He moved his shoes to the wall of the hall, knowing that he'd end up tripping over them if he didn't. The sound of the cops chasing him still rang through his ears, the threats that they screamed implanted in his mind. He could still feel the panic flowing through his veins as he tried to climb up a rusted ladder, and the sharp pains across his legs as he hit the rooftop. He could still hear his own panicked breaths as he backed into a dead-ended alleyway, his handgun only having three bullets left. 

He snapped himself out of the memories by punching the wall. His hand only started to hurt even more, rather than fixing his problem. He swore under his breath and held his hand over his chest, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut to stop himself from lashing out. It wasn't the worst pain he'd ever felt. But that's a story for another day. 

His footsteps were quiet as he navigated through the house. He stretched his hands slowly, curling and uncurling his hand to try and subdue the pain. He muttered quiet curses as he walked into the bathroom, deliberately slamming the door to highlight how annoyed he was. Smitty padded along the white tiles and reached for the medical cabinet above the sink, ignoring the bruised and broken reflection that met him in the mirror. His hand around a roll of bandage and pulled a bottle of orange pills down after it. He popped it open and tipped two of the unmarked pills into his hand, swallowing them dry. He coughed. 

"Shit." 

It was a small bathroom, with a step-in shower, a toilet and a countertop sink being the only preplaced things in it. A plastic plant sat beside a bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner, which was stood on top of two books that hadn't been read. A few other knick-knacks were sprawled across the counter, as did a jet-black handgun. A pair of yellow sunglasses sat behind the taps, they hadn't been worn in months, but Smitty wasn't about to go searching for his usual pair. The light was flickering slowly, sometimes turning off for minutes at a time. The towels on the heater were dry from the morning. The shower was still misty. The window was cracked open, allowing the early afternoon breeze into the room and clearing the overwhelming smell of aftershave that usually filled the room. Two toothbrushes sat in a clear glass, one bright blue and the other covered in primary colours. A tube of toothpaste was in front of it, half-used.

He pushed himself up onto the counter as best he could and started to wrap the bandage around his fucked hand. He winced as he wound it around his fingers, drawing blood from how hard he was biting his bottom lip. The blood was spat into the sink basin and continued to bandage his hand. It wound up his wrist and back down again, muttering about nothing at all. He kicked the cabinet beneath the counter when he finished wrapping it, sending a spike of pain through his leg. 

Smitty leaned back against the wall behind the counter. A loud sigh escaped his lips, his burnt oak eyes drifting closed. His bandaged hand sat over his lap, and his other was pushing his hair out of the way of his closed eyes, the mess of unbrushed curls being more annoying than anything else. His mind wandered idly for a while, vague flashes of fear and panic surfacing from the lake of emotion that usually softly swirled in the background. He saw things that he didn't want to see again, images and memories surfacing from their locked box at the bottom. 

He felt like he was drowning. Water covered his body, filling his lungs. Panic built in whatever space was left. It was fucking cold. He was tired. His bruised hands tried to grasp onto the water around him, his cut legs kicking to try and get himself out of the ocean. He was scared. He couldn't think straight. The water seemed to get heavier and heavier as he fought it more and more. He was starting to regret skipping swim class in middle school. He tried to scream, but only received a mouthful of saltwater in reply. His chest hurt. 

His eyes snapped open. He pushed himself down from the counter and quickly made his way out of the room, his burnt oak eyes wider than they had been all day. His composure quickly returned once the door to the room closed, his mind settling back to small ripples and the ocean around him draining back to a slow lap around his ankles. He wasn't drowning anymore. 

"I'm just... Worried, I guess." He heard John say from the living room. "After what he's been through, I-I just don't think putting h- I know it isn't my decision, but Brock wouldn't agree to this and you fucking know it." 

Smitty froze outside of the bathroom door. 

"Threaten me all you want, Tyler." John spat. "Fuck you too." 

Then the house went silent. Smitty started to walk towards the living room, the feeling of water weighing over his body still sitting over him. He had a strange salty taste in his mouth, mixed with the blood that he'd drawn from his lips. He pressed his finger to his lips and frowned at the blotches of red that decorated his pale skin when he pulled it away. 

He pushed the door open to reveal John lying along the loveseat with the remote in his hand. He was flicking through movie channels, rolling his eyes at most of what was playing. His pistol was sat on the coffee table, beside an unwashed plate from the night before and a glass of tequila. A slice of lime was lying on the used plate, and a salt shaker was hidden behind the pill bottle. John met him with a short-lived smile, as if he hadn't been ignoring him since he got back home. 

Smitty scowled. "What was that about?"

"What was what about?" John propped himself up on his elbows, raising an eyebrow. 

"Don't bullshit me, John." Smitty sounded like he was ready to do something bad. "What is it?" 

John sat up fully and crossed his legs like a child waiting for instruction from a teacher. "It's nothing you need to be worried about, Smit. It's adult business." 

"I'm not a kid anymore, John." Smitty frowned. A slight pause followed his words, before realisation clicked in his mind. "This-this is about my job, isn't it?" 

John sighed. "We located a shipment of heroin three miles into the pacific. You're the only person small enough to get in and out of the boat without being caught, and it's moving in tonight. Wildcat wants you to go in and get the target before the shipment can get on shore." 

Smitty stumbled back. His bandaged hand wrapped around the door handle and pulled it open, his chest filling with saltwater with each passing moment. The water around his ankles started to rise again, invisible currents dragging him further and further down. His bandaged hand stung. His mind raced faster than he could comprehend. He was shaking 

"O-oh fuck." John sounded far away. "Smit, you're safe. It's okay, I'm here. Breathe for me, please." 

He shrunk back into his 15-year-old self. He could feel himself being dragged out of the water, and he could hear faint yelling ringing in his ears. He could still feel the cool metal beneath his head and the warm blanket covering his drenched clothes. He could barely see the somewhat friendly looking figure standing over him. 

"You're safe now." They'd said, crouching down to meet his eye. Their sunglasses pinned their hair back from falling into their eyes, and their shirt made them visible from a mile away. "The name's Moo. Welcome to the family."


	10. Homemade Cookies

To say that Brock was concerned about Smitty would be a vast understatement. He rarely saw the teen like this, and when he did it was never... As bad as it had gotten. Upon receiving the call from John about his state, he'd dropped everything he had left to do and drove straight to their small house just outside of the city, breaking a few traffic laws along the way. He was wearing his usual attire, minus the Rolex, and his shoes clicked louder than before against the cracked concrete leading to their front door. A few people stared. 

The garden was wildly unkept, overgrown grass and too many wildflowers to count making the place a paradise for insects and small animals alike. Their path was cracked and broken, a few crushed cigarettes and blunts pressed into the crevices. The front door was coated in a thin layer of brown paint, the number 25 barely hanging onto the wood. The car in the driveway was pathetic when compared to the Lamborghini that Brock had arrived in, but it did its job just as well as the sports car. Their curtains were almost constantly closed, only ever opening when one of them felt the need to get away from the artificial light that constantly flooded the hallways. A few roof tiles were missing. 

"I-oh thank god." John opened the door and let Brock in without hesitation. "I didn't think you'd come." 

"What happened?" Brock knew his way around the house like he knew the back of his hand, so finding where the teen was would be no difficultly to him. 

"He freaked when I told him Tyler's plan... The one with the heroin shipment." John locked the seven locks on the inside of the door and met Brock at the entrance to Smitty's room. "He's acting like he was when-when you found him." 

"What the fuck was he thinking?!" Brock's tone was snappier than usual. He smelled like nicotine.

"I-I don't know."

"Jesus Christ- Go ask the moron what was running through his tiny fucking mind before I plant him into the ground with my bare fucking hands." Brock waved John away, and didn't give time for a reply. He took a few deep breaths and pushed his hair out of his face with his sunglasses, deciding that having his full vision was better than having half.

Smitty's small room was nothing short of a mess. Clothes and old takeout boxes covered the floor. The bottom sheet of his mattress was halfway up the bed, and his duvet cover was on the other side of the room. His blue curtains were constantly drawn, his simplistic lamp giving off a near blinding light to the dark room. The paint on the walls was chipping, some cracks hidden by posters Brock had bought within a few weeks of meeting the teen, to help him feel more at home in the room he'd been given in the apartment. A few photos of people Brock didn't recognise were stuck to the walls, but he knew better than to ask before he was told with Smitty. He'd learned that the hard way after an apple had bounced from his head after suggesting to organise a slumber party for his friends. 

He was lying under the covers, a pillow over his head and his pale hands being the only thing showing that he was actually there as opposed to a pile of pillows; as he'd done a few times before. He didn't respond to Brock arriving in the room, or to him sitting on the edge of his bed. He didn't even say hello. 

Brock didn't mind, though. He knew from personal experience that pushing the teen for would result in something much worse than what he was currently going through. He didn't push like he would with anyone else, he didn't force answers like he would in the past. He simply sat on the springy mattress and started to think about how he could make the room cleaner. A clean environment always made him feel better after a shitty day, so it had to work for Smitty. And if it didn't, then he would simply have to mess his room back up once Brock had left. It wouldn't be a hard task for him, either, so it was a win-win either way.

"I'm gonna move some stuff outta the way, just so you have a path to your closet and out of the room." Brock wore a smile, despite knowing that Smitty wasn't looking. "I'll throw away the trash and leave your clothes in a pile by your door, anything else I'll check with you before I put it somewhere, okay?" 

No response. 

It was scary how much he was reminded of the first week that Smitty had been with them. He refused to eat anything and asking him to leave his room was like asking him to walk barefoot across a bed of rusty nails. He'd closed himself away from the world and only started to open up once Brock had made his permanent presence known. Whether it was by baking cookies and leaving them outside his door, or giving the teen lesson in how to properly use a gun, he'd made sure to let him know that he was safe. He didn't want to have to do that again. 

The very prospect of that night still sent shivers down his spine. He didn't know how Smitty had ended up in the water, but knew for a fact that he hadn't just fallen in. No sane parent let their child go out into the Pacific Ocean at three in the morning. The fact that someone could purposefully try to kill a 15 year old for no good reason fuelled his inner fire with unimaginable anger - especially someone as clueless about the world as Smitty was. He was school smart, that much was easy to tell from his late-night rants about how he struggled with remembering things that Brock couldn't pronounce, but he was by no means street smart. There were a number of times that Brock had to intervene in jobs just so that Smitty wouldn't die. 

As the years went by, he became more of a younger brother to Brock, someone who needed to be protected even if he was perfectly capable of protecting himself. There was a select handful of people who had the privilege of being in that club. He'd put a protective order over the teen, without letting him know, and threatened anyone who touched a single hair on his head with Delirious. Unsurprisingly, people left him alone for a while after that. 

A few minutes passed before Smitty moved the pillow away from his face. He turned into his side and pulled the covers up to hide half of his face, watching Brock fold his clothes intently with his washed out oak eyes. 

"Wanna do anything?" Brock asked, folding a light blue t-shirt over his chest. 

Smitty shook his head subtly, but enough for the other to see. 

Brock started to pile the folded clothes beside the door, exactly like he said he would. He sighed. "Have you had anything to eat?" 

"No..." Smitty's voice was as broken as it had been on that god forsaken night. His eyes were red and puffy, his curls more of a mess than usual. 

"D'you want anything to eat?" 

"Not real-really."

"That's fine." Brock smiled across at him. "Wanna talk?" 

"I-If you talk."

And that's exactly what Brock did. He sat back down on the edge of Smitty's bed and just let the words fall, repeating a story he could remember his mom telling him when he was a kid. He knew it off by heart, after making her write it down for him when he was 7 so he'd never forget it. He spent three months learning every single word. Smitty had already heard the story at least three times before, but he didn't mind hearing it for a fourth.


	11. Ice-Skates

Smitty chased Evan around the ice-rink with a grin. The sound of skates hitting the ice was like music to his ears, the feeling of 'normal' clothes against his skin was like being back at home. His curls were free of the gel that he'd ran through it for six straight months, his arms free of expensive jewels and his shoulders free of the weight of the shoulder-pads on his blazer. 

No burdens of his life were upon his shoulders, the reality of life having drifted away as soon as his feet hit the ice. He wasn't held under a title that placed him on a pedestal to be feared from. He wasn't the teen who'd mastered the art of not being caught before he knew how to balance a chemical equation. He wasn't someone who could keep his nerve about him after days of constant murders. 

He was just Smitty. And that was enough.

He'd asked Brock to take him a few days after the flashbacks, wanting to get away from the sameness of everything in his room – it wasn't any help to the setting in his mind. Brock had, of course, complied, with Brian managing to sweet talk his way into getting the entire rink to themselves. Evan had been dragged along once he'd mentioned that he had an off-day but was more than happy to come along when he learned that they were ice-skating. They'd both been showing off for a long time, showing Brock how high they could jump and how fast they could go around the rink in harmless competition. 

"At least he's happy." Brian whispered to Brock. They were both resting against the barrier, their arms crossed and foreheads almost touching. 

"How long for, though?" Brock replied, his gaze set on the two Canadians racing around the rink. 

Brian moved one of his hands to join Brock's, turning to watch the race. "There's no point in worrying about that, darl. He's fine right now and that's all that matters." 

Smitty was getting closer to Evan. His moves were quiet, his eyes dead-set on the cops every move. His clothes were slightly oversized, a white hoodie and a pair of black trousers being the only things that Brock could find on a moments notice. Smitty had stolen a pair of socks from John before leaving the house. His boots were as white as the hoodie, the laces tied as tight as they could without cutting the circulation off to his feet. His nose and cheeks were rosy red, having been on the ice for the good portion of three hours.

"Yeah... I guess." Brock sighed. "I just... I don't want him to get hurt, Bri." 

"He won't." Brian ran his thumb along Brock's slightly red knuckles.

"Jesus!" Evan yelled, his voice ringing through the empty rink. "I didn't think you w-were that fuckin' close, man!" 

Smitty laughed, pushing away from Evan and sliding along the ice towards the centre. "That's the whole point of it, dumbass!" 

Evan rested his hands behind his head as he skated closer to Smitty, his eyes drifting closed for a few seconds. "I want- no... I-I demand another round." 

Smitty grinned, somewhat mischievously. "Winner buys the loser lunch for the next week."


	12. The Boy in the Mirror

Smitty had been running for a while. He took the stairs to Brock's apartment, deciding that he'd get too impatient in the elevator. He took them two at a time, his running shoes thudding against the hardwood surface and echoing through the stairwell. His glasses were hung over his t-shirt, the red and blue standing out against the slightly stained grey. A black duffel bag bounced against his side, his sniper hidden beneath a layer of old clothes. Hot and salty tears traced his face, digging trenches through the red puffiness that painted his pale cheeks. A sob rattled over his shoulders, heavily adding another unneeded weight to them. His hands were shaking. Blood stained his face, scratches and bruises painting the areas that weren't painted crimson. 

"Fu-ck." He bit back a loud sob as he reached the floor of the apartment, knowing that Brock would overly-mother him if he walked back in looking how he did. He wiped the dried blood as best as he could with his wrist, a deep red stain smearing across his pale skin. 

He'd broken someone's arm. The snap still rang through his head, the scream following close behind. He'd smashed a bottle of champagne over their head, being the only thing he could reach while they had him pinned. He'd shot them with a cold and unforgiving look glazing over his eyes when they fell back from the glass. He'd shot them with no remorse, his face being the last thing engraved in their mind. 

It was his final job of the day, something that Luke had asked him to do as a favour, and he'd managed to fuck it up even more than usual. He was supposed to call John and tell him where he was. He was supposed to wait for Jonathan to pick him up. He was supposed to go back to the apartment and act as though nothing had gone wrong. He was supposed to get away clean. But... 

He hadn't. 

A cop car had chased him, sirens screaming and lights flashing brightly over him. He'd shot the tires out as he was climbing a building, sending the car crashing into a lamppost. The screams from the street would haunt him until the day he died. The gunshot pierced through his ears, ringing loudly as he tried to hold back the scream building in his throat. He sat on the roof for a while, headphones loud and his gaze set on his shoes. The sound of a helicopter closing in was what made him start to run again.

"Fucking pathetic." Fitz spat.

He could hear it so vividly, it was almost as if the Kiwi was beside him. He could see the glare haunting through deathly cold blue eyes. He could feel the cold hand wrapping around his wrist to drag him away from where he was crying.

The door to Brock's apartment was unlocked. Laughter echoed from the living room, Jonathan yelling loudly about someone cheating at a game. Smitty quietly shut the door behind him, placing the duffel bag on the floor as he slowly moved away. He took off his shoes and left them beside John's boots, the dirty white standing out against the tan and blacks of the rest. His steps were quiet. He could hear Brian and Tyler laughing at something. Ryan and Brock were having an argument over the definition of cheating. Glasses clinking and game effects sounded through the apartment. Jonathan yelled something that didn't make sense, which caused another round of laughter to circulate the place. 

The bathroom in Brock's apartment was standard. A mirror spanned the wall above the counter, a sink beneath it. A toilet and a glass-walled shower being the only other things in there. A bottle of soap sat on the marble counter, beside a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The lock on the door was gold and clicked quietly when it was turned. The light was bright above him, shining down on him as though it was the last thing he was going to see. The mirror was clean, shining under the glow of the light. There were three cigarettes left in the packet. 

Smitty stood over the sink with his head hanging low. His arms were locked, his knuckles turning white from how hard he was gripping it. His burnt-out eyes watched the plug as though it was about to jump out and scream at him, which wouldn't surprise him by this point. Nothing was that surprising anymore. 

A tear dripped into the basin of the sink. 

He'd missed his shot. A shaky hand and an unwillingness to murder a stranger in cold blood being the culprits. The gun clattered to the floor, light footsteps tripping away from the crack that filled the alleyway. He was caught from falling by hand grabbing his wrist and pulling him straight up. Nails dug into his pale skin. 

"Jesus Christ- I... I don't know what the hell to do with you, Smitty..." Fitz yelled. His voice was cold and unforgiving, his eyes darkening with each passing second. "I ask you to do the simplest thing you're ever going to have to do, and you couldn't even pull the goddamned trigger! It's-No... You're fucking pathetic!" 

"I-I'm so-sorry." The thirteen-year-old had cried, tugging away from the sharp hand wrapped around his wrist. "I-I'll... I'll d-do it next t-time I prom-ise." 

Fitz's nails were drawing blood from the fragile wrist in his grasp. "Stop crying before I give you a fucking reason to cry, kid."

Smitty looked up at himself in the mirror with a frown. He could still feel the blood around his wrist, the stinging that followed as he tried to wash it away before he went home to see his mom. He could still remember blaming his school for the bright purple bruise on his shoulder, telling her that one of his friends had thrown a ball at him while he wasn't paying attention. He could still remember Fitz calling him out of algebra to finish what he'd started under the guise of a dentist appointment. 

He wasn't as tough as Jonathan. He wasn't good at finding information like John and David. He wasn't as cunning or smart-mouthed as Brian. He wasn't a good driver like Tyler. He wasn't as threatening as Luke or Ryan. He wasn't a double agent like Evan. He wasn't a good leader like Brock. 

More tears fell into the basin.

He was just Smitty. The kid who should've drowned in the Pacific. The kid who had to have a protection order secretly hung over his head to keep him from being killed. The kid who'd been betrayed by those he held closest far too many times for him to let anyone else in. The kid who couldn't even go to a beach without having a panic attack. The kid who pushed everyone away when he needed them the most. 

The reflection that stared back at him wasn't who he thought it would be. He was met by a bruised and broken boy, someone with dark circles under dull eyes that used to be as bright as the first day of spring. Faded freckles hiding beneath purple and blue bruises, dried crimson blood stains pressed to pale skin like acrylic paint pressed to a canvas. Tear trenches dug through puffy, red skin from how long he'd been crying. Chapped lips tried to smile, but each attempt got heavier and heavier until it was practically impossible to even try. Curly white hair was poorly styled with gel, brown roots showing through the paper-white masquerade. 

Fitz was right. He was fucking pathetic.

Smitty cried into a pink shirt. His hands balled up the loose fabric and gripped it tightly, as though he'd die if he let go. "I-I... I d-did it, Ma-Mason." 

"I know." Mason frowned, hugging him closer than he had in a while "It's over an' done with now, Smit. You don't have to think about it anymore." 

Smitty only cried harder. His tears pressed warmly against the pink shirt Mason had chosen for that day, choked out breaths barely making their way into his lungs. His brown hair was fluffy, barely styled from almost being late for school. His light eyes were dull and bloodshot, the usual glittery shine that encompassed them faded to nothing. His already pale skin had somehow managed to lose even more shades than it had, the only colouration being the redness from his cheeks. 

Mason smiled, his voice quieter than what it had been before. "You're okay, Smit. I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you." 

Tucker had laughed when he said bye, telling him not to get his teeth ripped out as he stole Smitty's answers. The receptionist had asked if he knew Fitz, concern lacing her gaze as the thirteen-year-old dragged himself up to the main doors. Smitty had nodded when he saw the hidden look in Fitz's arctic gaze, making up some lie about him being his uncle so that he'd be able to be let out. Fitz had simply nodded at him as they left the building, ignoring the fear-filled eyes that stared directly at the white Cadillac that was parked outside the doors.

Mason pried him away and held his shoulders, softer than the teen was expecting. "Let's go get ice-cream from that new place at the beach, calm you down a bit before I have to take you home, yeah?" 

Smitty coughed out a breath and forced himself to look up. The broken and the bruised boy stared at him from the mirror. Dark bruises littering pale skin, hiding faded freckles beneath their mask. Dark eyes masking what used to be full of life. A permanent frown painting over what used to be a permanent smile. His mind ran with its grip on bittersweet memories that had been his reality less than four years ago. 

Jonathan could do it in his sleep, his bat flying wildly and his laugh screaming through the streets. Luke and Ryan could both do it, guns and knives held tightly in their grasps as they did their jobs. Tyler could do it, when he was in the right mood, his electric eyes enough to strike fear into anyone who looked into them for too long. 

The boy in the mirror couldn't do any of that. The boy in the mirror had killed someone when he was thirteen and walked into school the next day as though nothing had happened, under the threat of an early grave if he let on to what he'd done. The boy in the mirror had gotten into his first fight when he was fifteen, breaking someone's nose in retaliation to them talking about his 'uncle'. The boy in the mirror had been arrested for armed robbery when he was sixteen and had been grounded for three months after he was bailed out. The boy in the mirror had barely finished high-school and had attended graduation with blood-covered clothes.

"You need to control your fucking temper, Smitty!" Brock yelled as the teen threw his backpack to the ground. "I understand you're so angry at the world and all but... Breaking someone's nose?"

The boy in the mirror was broken.

Mason smiled, his voice quieter than what it had been before. "You're okay, Smit. I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you." 

The boy in the mirror was lied to. 

Fitz's nails were drawing blood from the fragile wrist in his grasp. "Stop crying before I give you a fucking reason to cry, kid."

The boy in the mirror finally had a reason to cry.


	13. Cinnamon

Brock was expecting to go home to a cold apartment, considering the fact that David had called him over to his place as soon as the sun was over the horizon. He'd called it a crisis but in reality, it was just him panicking over one of his dogs barking at a spider in the bathroom. Tyler had then called him over to deal with Evan's sorry attempt at piloting a fake helicopter ending in a small fire in the garden. Smitty had made him go out to get ice-cream downtown, and then refused to let him leave the house until he was asleep. 

Once he got home, he was planning on ordering takeout and changing into one of Brian's hoodies, just to make him feel slightly less lonely than he knew that he would. A quiet night in with a sappy romance movie playing in the background, then heading to bed and trying to sleep without the presence of someone else there. Romance movies always made him feel more alone than usual, the image of two people falling into a faux love for the sake of entertainment tugging at his heartstrings and letting the tears pour. 

So, he was more than confused when he walked in to see all of the lights on and the smell of cinnamon floating through the air. He dropped his blazer to the floor and fixed his hair back with his sunglasses, tired brown eyes hastily looking around for something to indicate a break-in. Nothing was smashed and everything seemed to be almost exactly as he'd left it, bar the fact that the door to his bedroom was open when he'd left it closed. What sort of robber would break into a million-dollar apartment and only go into the bedroom? 

"Anyone here?" He called his shoes clicking loudly as he made his way through the lonely halls. 

"It's me!" Brian called back, his head poking around the door and a smile drawn onto his lips. His hypnotizingly blue eyes drawing him closer and closer. His hair was blown back, as though he'd taken a walk in a wind tunnel for an hour and left the other side without trying to fix anything. He was wearing one of Brock's old jumpers, the collar of his shirt peaking out over the top and his tie nowhere to be seen.

"You're supposed to be sick." He folded his arms as the Irishman disappeared back into the kitchen. 

"Supposed to be." Brian repeated. 

The kitchen smelled like cinnamon. A candle was lit on the counter, the flame flickering around in the darkness as though there was a breeze drifting over the place. Two fake marigolds were set up in a glass vase, the water clear with a few plastic leaves dropped in to give the effect that they were real. Two plates were set up, side-by-side on placemats that Brock had never seen before with cutlery that Brock didn't know he owned. A bottle of red wine was standing beside the vase, clearly cold from the condensation that stuck to the sides. The light was dimmed over the place, catching everything in a way that made it look prettier than usual. Outside, it was dark, buildings lit up with fluorescent yellows and the shadows of people moving pressed against the glass panes like moving photographs. 

"I was gonna make soup to help you feel better." Brock frowned. 

Brian shrugged, playing around with the dials and buttons on the stove to control whatever was being cooked. "Well, I'm doing the cooking tonight, so sit down and shut the fuck up." 

"Romantic." Brock laughed quietly.

"I do my best."

Ten minutes passed slowly, small talk floating around the air and mixing with the cinnamon scent that Brian seemed to love. The TV was playing soft music in the background, quiet piano and warm vocals floating warmly through the apartment in a way that made it feel like nothing was going to go wrong. As though everything was okay, for once. 

"Why'd you do this?" Brock raised his eyebrows as Brian sat next to him, placing two plates on the placemats that seemed to be brand new. 

He'd made pasta, a tomato sauce that seemed to be homemade over the top. It looked better than the takeout Brock was planning on ordering, or any of the leftovers that sat idly in the fridge. 

"We haven't spent any time around each other for ages... Just us two, I mean." Brian smiled softly and picked up his fork, tapping it against the edge of the plate as though he was waiting for something to happen. "I wanted to make it special." 

He looked ethereal under the dim light, the flickering warmth of the candle pressed against his complexion as though it was supposed to be there. His eyes glittered like the Mediterranean on a summers evening, a blue that would draw anyone closer and closer until they were submerged. A green undertone faintly shone through, looking like mildew pressing against the first blades of grass to show in spring. 

"Anything I do with you is special, Bri." Brock almost laughed, his smile wavering slightly as the emotion built up behind his eyes. "You don't have to do this to... To prove it to me." 

"I wanted to."

It felt homely. The only thing missing was a dog. He wanted a dog once everything settled down. Maybe Brian would move in, and everyone else would move out, permanently. They would wake up in the mornings, drink coffee and watch shitty TV until they were awake enough to realise just how bad it was. They'd curl up on the sofa and watch sappy romances, Brian would probably laugh at how cheesy they were and Brock would probably cry at the end. They'd spend hours sitting in silence, comfortably of course, and the few words that would be shared would be short and sweet. They'd share blankets and do their own thing, looking up to each other every now and then to make sure that they were still alive and breathing. 

Everything would be okay. 

The candle slowly flickered to an end as they set their cutlery down over their plates, the black smoke floating slowly up to the ceiling and fading into nothing. The cinnamon scent was almost overwhelming, probably from Brian relighting it a few times during the day. Melted wax pooled around the wick, which was wilted and charcoal-black, and almost too tempting to touch as it shone under the dim light. 

"I didn't know you could cook." Brock hummed over a glass of wine, Brian having opened it after he sat.

"Neither did I." Brian mumbled under his breath, glancing towards the world outside as Brock took a drink. "I'm surprised that I didn't burn this fucker down." 

"So am I."


	14. All You Need Is One Shot

One shot. 

Smitty sat idly at the top of a building, his eye pressed to a scope and his finger wavering over the trigger as it always did. He was shaking. Gloves covered his hand from the breeze that drifted over the rooftop. It was strangely cold in the city, considering that it hadn't rained in three days.

One shot.

His earpiece buzzed quietly with the words of others that he'd turned down to focus on his task. He could just make out David and John arguing over a location, and Brian egging them on. A blue duffle bag rested beneath his knees, protecting them from the uncomfortable bricks that covered the roof. Stolen sunglasses covered his eyes, the tag still attached to the bridge and a 'UV PROTECTION' sticker still on the bottom of the right lense. The golden watch on his wrist glittered slightly in the light. 

Smitty pressed his forefinger to his ear, his words barely above a whisper. "How long?" 

"Two minutes." John replied, the therapeutic clicks of his keyboard following his words. "You only get one shot, Smit." 

"That's all I need." 

Smitty took the earpiece out and let his hang over his ear, the faint humming of words still making their way into his ear. He clicked through his phone and put one of his headphones in to replace the endless drone of words. Music immediately started to play, loud enough to deafen him if he listened for long enough, as his mother would've said. He almost smiled at the warm memory flooding into his brain, had it not been for the sudden loneliness that settled over his head as soon as it appeared. 

He wondered if his mother missed him. Maybe she visited that grave that Fitz made for him, an unidentified body lying where he was supposed to be. She probably left flowers, red ones, and balloons when she could afford it. Fitz's money had to be running low, by this point. He'd only visited the site once, his fingers traced over the engraved name in cold grey marble and a golden watch sitting beside them. 

Showing up at her door would be more than absurd. How would he even introduce himself if he decided to go back? 'Hey mom, I know that I'm supposed to be dead and all, but the mafia found me and now I kill people for a living'?

She'd probably slap him for not going back sooner, then pull him close and refuse to let him go until he was suffocating in the soft material of her favourite blouse. She'd show him to his room, which hadn't been touched since the 'funeral', and would hide all of the albums filled with photos of a boy who wasn't there anymore. She'd probably order a pizza from that small place downtown (that they both loved) and cry her eyes out as he thanked her, saying something about how much she missed hearing his voice. She'd tuck him into bed after watching 'Love, actually', as though he was still the innocent kid that he'd been before, and kiss his forehead, a warm smile tracing her painted lips as she said goodnight. 

People passed below, completely unaware of the sniper that sat above. Unaware that an 18-year-old was staring, stone cold, at the spot where someone was going to die in a minute. Unaware of the blood that would slowly drip and pool and stain the steps until the city paid to get it cleaned. They talked into their phones, laughing and arguing with people who they were supposed to love. They carried the burdens of work on their backs and hid it beneath a permanent fake smile, bringing money back to houses full of empty love and drenched in glue that would never fixed what had already been broken. 

A mess of sandy blonde hair passed by, arctic eyes and a smile that he'd never forget implanting on the lense. 

Smitty pulled away from the scope, pulling something in his arm with how fast he'd moved. He winced.

One shot. One shot. One shot. 

A black car pulled up to the curb, a man with greying hair and stormy eyes stepping onto the pavement with a presence about him that would make the most confident person on the planet shrink down into their seat. A silver briefcase was in his left hand, his right holding a phone to his ear. His paces were slow, completely unaware that he was going to be dead as soon as he was on the third step. He grimaced as he hung up the phone. 

"Smitty?" His earpiece buzzed with Brock's voice. "Now!" 

He threw his sunglasses off and pressed his eye to the scope and centred on the back of his head, a deep breath. His finger curled around the trigger, leather scratching sharply against soft skin. Experienced brown eyes bore holes into the back of his skull. 

A deep breath.

One shot. 

His finger tightened around the trigger. 

One fucking shot.

"Smitty!" 

The recoil hit harder than the shot did. A bruise started to form on his shoulder as he bit back the cry that formed in the base of his chest, pale skin turning a speckled red. He cursed. His music was loud. Brock's voice was quiet. The shot rang through his ears like the school bell did first thing on a morning, when nobody in their right mind was awake enough to take it in. 

It was clean. 

The mess of sandy blonde hair was nowhere to be seen. 

"Delirious and Ohm need to move now." John was talking this time. "Everyone else keep a distance, we don't wanna be too suspicious. Stay casual unless things go south." 

The sniper was packed and Smitty was down the ladder before anyone else could say anything. He fixed his posture before leaving the small alleyway, glancing across to the car that Brock and Tyler and John were all waiting for him in. He was keeping his distance, just as John had said. 

To anyone watching, Smitty looked as though he was a kid on his way to a game. The duffle bag, the running shoes, the slightly oversized hockey shirt beneath his sports jacket. All that was missing was a hockey stick and he'd be perfectly disguised. This worked for now, though. If anyone asked, he could just tell them that he left it at the rink by accident. That was believable.

"Smitty, where are you going?" Brock asked, sounding more concerned than usual. 

"Detour." Smitty pulled the radio out from his belt and threw it. The earpiece snaked through his clothes and clattered against the road. An ambulance crushed it beneath its wheels, Jonathan and Ryan completely oblivious to what they'd done as they travelled closer to their target. Green components and multicoloured wires flying free of their plastic container that they'd been held in. 

Brock was going to kill him when he got home. 

Twenty minutes passed quickly. He threw up in an alleyway, coughing up the things that he'd actually managed to eat. His entire body was shaking too much for it to be safe. The duffel bag was heavy on his shoulder. He'd put his headphones back in to mute the sound of people around him, his 'anxiety' playlist as loud as his phone would allow.

Tears slowly trickled down his reddened cheeks. The bruise on his shoulder was starting to hurt, feeling more like he'd been sucker punched with a cinder block than hit with the butt of a gun. He was tired from not sleeping properly. He was sick from eating before a job. He was exhausted from being on his feet almost 24/7 after Brock found him curled up in the bathroom, to stop it from happening again.

He wanted to laugh at the idea that being constantly on his feet would help his worries, because it didn't. It made him panic at the slightest of things, the faintest of sound causing him to jump a mile in the air. It made him fall asleep half-way through briefings, Jonathan nudging him awake as he was falling asleep himself. It made him stay until the sun was high in the sky, paranoid thoughts racing through his mind as though his mind was Formula One, and the thoughts were competing for the cup.

He wiped at his cheeks frantically, and his jacket was itchy against his skin. Itchy, itchy, itchy. Why had Brock bought it for him? Probably because of the price tag, he decided. Brock liked to buy him expensive things as a way to 'make up for the trauma', when all he really needed was therapy. Therapy would probably help his problems more than a jacket he only wore when it was going to be cold, which wasn't all too often in the city. 

Nerves built in his stomach from being out in the open for too long. This was the sort of thing that he'd been taught to avoid since he was a kid, open spaces with every single angle able to be hit without any effort. Spaces without many places to get cover to fire back at anyone firing at him. Spaces where he couldn't see the vantage points people could be perched on, or the red dot of a sniper floating down through the air to get a clear shot. Places where nothing was certain. 

His music was loud. 

He was completely unaware of the white Cadillac following him. He was completely unaware of Brock being two paces behind. He was completely unaware of the faint red dot on his leg.

"Smitty!" 

He hit the floor. A sharp pain rang through his leg, it burnt. It wasn't supposed to burn, was it?

People screamed all around him. People ran. Faces appeared, people who he'd never met before standing over him and talking to him as though he was their best friend. Everything got blurry, and the number of people kept wavering between double and triple. He couldn't think straight, his mind foggier than it had ever been, hot red fog rolling in from a place that wasn't supposed to exist. Someone put something soft under his head.

"Hey, buddy, stay with me." One woman said, a soft smile over her lips and a panicked look in her eyes. "It's okay. You're fine." 

"Sm- Get out of my fucking way!" John pushed someone away and kneeled beside his head. "Smitty- Fuc-... Someone call a fucking ambulance!" He held back a sob, and Smitty knew it. 

"He-hey." He managed to say, blinking slowly. His words were slurred. "D-on't c-cry." 

It hurt. A lot. 

You were supposed to see a blinding light when you died. That's what his dad had told him, at least. You saw white and then you met an angel at the gates to heaven, who let you in or kicked you out depending on what you'd done. It was supposed to be peaceful, you weren't supposed to feel anything as the light got brighter, the pain drifting slowly into the distance as though you'd taken the world's strongest painkiller. You were supposed to be surrounded by people who loved you, their eyes filled with tears as you took in the last few moments you had on this earth, silently thanking them for everything that they'd done for you over the years.

"You're gonna be okay." John ran his hands through the white mess atop his head, pushing gelled strands back out of dulling brown eyes. "Stay with me, Smit. I-I... Talk to me."

He wanted his mom. She'd make things better. She'd help the pain go away. She'd cradle him close and sing softly, an old German song that he couldn't quite remember the name to. She'd run her fingers through his white hair and make a joke about how greasy it was. She'd scold him for not showering. She'd make sure that he was comfortable in the here and now, that he was safe from being hurt any more. She'd let him sleep.

"Stay awake, Smitty!" 

One shot. One shot. One fucking shot.


	15. Our Little Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lil POV change to the misfits

Heavy fog settled over the city, dark clouds covering the stars that haunted the place from above. Lights glittered softly over the clean paving stones, thin black puddles lying near stagnant, the only motion being soft ripples from the slow drizzle that fell from above. It was cold enough to make people feel warm if they'd been outside for long enough, skin reddening and bodies shaking as they made their way back home. Cars drove through the midnight streets, people leaning closer to the steering wheel as they tried to see through the fog, hands gripping tightly against the wheel as they peered closer than it was safe to do.

Cam walked slowly through the city. He held a cigarette between his teeth, clicking a lighter with an immeasurable amount of persistence. An orange flame flickered to life and caught the end, dark grey smoke immediately leaving his lips alongside a quiet cough. He was bruised and battered to hell, dark reds and deep purples blending together to meet a middle-ground of a colour that just didn't exist. Deep cuts were poorly sewn shut along his slightly tanned skin, the paper-white of the scars standing out like a sore thumb. Some were fresher than others, the black of the thread still visible through the cuts against his skin and the surrounding area still red from the way it had been treated. His hair was sandy blonde, slightly curled and windswept to hell and back. His nose was bloody from a fight he didn't want to get in.

His figure was intimidating against the black background of the city. A faint orange glow hung around him from one of the lampposts behind him, and it made him look as though he was a God, and he held himself in the exact same way. He held himself high and mighty, long strides and a perfect posture making him look exactly how he felt. Arctic eyes pierced through the night, icicles hanging and threatening to fall into the cold ocean below at a moment's notice. The mystery around him only added to the intimidating factors that hung over him like an anvil waiting to drop; the knife strapped to his leg, the empty pistol pressed to his hip, burner phone that sat in his back pocket. 

Slowly, he let another breath of smoke out into the cold night. Nicotine buzzed softly through his adrenaline filled veins, his mind wide awake with an endless drawl of bittersweet memories and images of the thigs that he'd done. They didn't phase him all too much, having repeated his actions more times than he could count on one hand, but they bugged him at any opportunity they found. Memories engraved themselves into the walls of his mind, flaming hot needles stabbing into him and not letting him forget. His arctic gaze followed the smoke, watching as it danced through the sky and fell weak to the vapor that hung above.

A black car passed by and Cam could've sworn that the passengers tired brown gaze followed him the entire way. 

The lights above gave a faint orange glow to his figure, making him look as though he was a God amongst men. He held himself high. There was a purpose to each and every move that he made, power held tightly in his grasp and refusing to fall flat as he paced through the midnight streets. He walked as though he owned the city, blood spilling over his waterfall of sins, pushing his lifeboat further and further towards his place on the throne of hell. 

Cam rubbed under his eye with a bloody hand, streaking thin crimson across his slightly tanned skin in a futile attempt to wake himself up. He lifted his pace slightly to get away from the rain that was starting to get heavier. It wouldn't take long to get home. It never did.

The only thing that he had to do was make sure that the right amount of drugs left the place before the next import came in, and that was simple enough for him to do in his sleep. All it took was the signing of a few documents and a small meeting over the burner phone to make sure that his products arrived where they were scheduled to go.

Ten minutes passed before he was at the house. His hair was pressed against his forehead, his clothes dripping wet and his shoes filled with the results of walking across the city in the middle of a storm. His car was in the driveway, still as perfect as the day he'd bought it. 

It was Smitty's idea, getting the Cadillac. The kid had loved sitting in the passenger seat when they'd gone to look for a replacement to his last and had begged for him to get it rather than the Audi that he had his eyes set on. Cam couldn't say no to his innocent gaze, so he'd payed it off with stolen cash and drove out with it on the same day. They'd taken a drive down to the beach, Smitty dragging him down to an ice-cream place that he seemed to adore whenever he was around the gang. 

He scowled at the memory. 

A faint yellow light came from under the front door, showing that at least one person was awake. A pit opened up in the bottom of his stomach, an anxiety for what he was going to find inside slowly building further and further until it reached the wall that he'd spent years building without any form of help. He pulled the keys from his back pocket and slid them into the lock, twisting it to the left and wincing slightly when it clicked open. 

The door slammed behind him, wordlessly announcing his arrival within seconds of stepping inside. 

He kicked his shoes off beside the door and crushed his cigarette in the dirty, ceramic ashtray. He had to get somebody to clean that out before he set accidentally fire to the burnt ashes. He hung his jacket over the wooden hook that Swagger had put up during a drunk run of 'creativity' that almost ended in someone getting a nail between their eyes. His steps were quiet. 

It wasn't a big house, by any means, but it was enough to house three people without any complaints. Maybe four if someone doubled up for the night. It was cosy from the outside and a drug dealers paradise on the inside. Maps and thumbtacks littered most surfaces, red sharpies and small plastic bags filled with questionable substances hiding in various places throughout. There was an abundance of lighters in the living room, piled up on top of each other and all varying in colour. 

The dining room was decorated with a variety of weapons and small bags of various drugs. Blood was splattered on the floor, the tiled surface painted in an array of reds that would give a haematologist a run for their money. A few bullet shells were on the floor, bronzes and golds glittering slightly under the dim yellow light from above. An ashtray was sitting in the middle of the table, a bright green lighter sitting beside it. Dirty footprints lead in and out of the place, light and dark browns blending with the rainbow of reds to create colours that only got darker as time went on. 

Mason was sat on the table, his legs swinging back and forth in rhythmic pattern. He looked tired, which wasn't all too surprising considering how little sleep that he'd been getting. He was flipping a knife around in his hands, bloodied colours catching the light and glinting over his pale features. His hair was styled gently, as though somebody else had done it for him rather than in his usual carless fashion. 

"What's wrong, Masey?" He wore a soft smile, now. His godly features settled down slightly, slowly fading away as he kicked himself out of his work mindset. 

Mason looked up from the knife he was flipping and completely avoided eye contact with Cam. "You didn't tell me he was still alive." 

"Who?" A lightening strike of fear struck into his heart, exploding with the mess of nicotine fuelled adrenaline that filled him to the brim. He knew exactly who Mason was talking about, but he didn't want to admit that. He didn't want to admit that his most controversial decision had backfired without him even knowing. 

He could still hear Smitty's scream as he fell into the pacific. He could still feel Mason hitting and punching him as they sped away from the scene of the crime. He could still remember Toby's lecture the next morning. He could still remember the fear that had filled the house for months after, bundling around Cam like coins to a magnet. He could still remember the looks that Mason had given him from afar for months after, the cold shoulder that he'd given him only making his anger grow and grow until he snapped.

Cam adored the feeling of being feared. It fuelled him, in a way, giving him a feeling of power that very few people ever got to experience. It lit up his brain with all the colours of the rainbow, a mess of adrenaline and excitement and nicotine and drugs filling his mind and refusing to leave until everyone in the city had a reason to be scared of him and him alone. That goal wasn't too far from being completed.

"You fucking know who I'm talking about, Cam." Mason scowled. "Why didn't... Why didn't you tell me?" 

"I only found out a few months ago." Cam crouched down to meet his eye and let out a long breath. "I didn't think that he'd be a problem for us. I-I thought he was..." The sentence trailed off into oblivion, both knowing what the last word was supposed to be but neither wanting to say it. "I didn't need you breaking down over him after what he did to us."

He'd cleaned his desk in a single swipe when he found out. Papers and blunts and ashes and glasses flying all over his makeshift office, crashing into rubble once they hit the floor. He'd taken the gun from the drawer of his desk and marched out of the room, shoving James and Toby out of his way and marching out to his car in broad daylight. Seven people had died that day.

Mason stabbed the knife into the hardwood of the table and sent a chip of wood flying across the room. "The fuck do you mean?" 

"You know what I mean, Masey." 

Cam felt anger boiling in the pit of his stomach at the very thought of the Mob. What the hell did they know about working a functioning operation under the law? They were just a group of rich pricks who wanted all of the excitement of the underground life without experiencing any of the terror and torment that everybody else had to go through to make their way to the top. It was mockery of everything that he'd worked for throughout his life, all of his struggles and hardships crushed to nothing because someone decided to become modern day Robin Hood and become a force for good in a world that, truly, didn't deserve it. 

Mason frowned. "He ratted us out?" 

"He ratted us out." Cam repeated, nodding his head. 

That much was a lie made up to justify his actions. Smitty was 15, for fucks sake. The kid didn't have the first idea of where to go to tell the cops about the group, never mind the guts to go through with the idea. No, Cam had pushed him overboard because he'd betrayed the trust that he'd spent five years building. He'd mentioned a murder to one of his friends, and the news had made it back to his mom through teachers repeating the story in their free time. He'd snapped at Cam when he was called out, then threw his AP history book at Toby for trying to calm him down. He'd stolen two pistols and gone on a series of small ATM robberies around the poorer areas of the city, just to prove a point that didn't need to be proved.

He deserved it, if you asked Cam. 

"Sorry." Mason mumbled, finally meeting Cam's icicle gaze. He looked broken, as though he'd spent most of his night crying, which wouldn't be surprising considering that his best friend had shot someone who was supposed to be dead. 

Cam pushed himself up to his feet and forced a smile. "Just... Just don't bring it up to anyone else. It'll be our little secret." 

"Yeah..." Mason nodded, pulling his knife from the table beside him and softly drawing it over the lines on his palms. "A-A secret."


	16. Cinder

Matt was expecting to walk home to his apartment as it had been before he left on a job. He was expecting the dished to be clean, the beds to be made, and for the floor to be cleaned of the array of footprints that covered it – like he'd asked. He was expecting to be able to unpack his bag and relax in a chair that wasn't in the back of a surveillance van, maybe have a hot drink while he tried to find a shit movie to watch as a way to wind-down. 

A box was ripped to shreds, small tooth marks pressed against it. A bag was lying on its side, holes almost splitting the bag in two. A craft store's worth of pop-poms littered the floor. A water bowl was sitting beside the door on a placemat that had been on the table before Matt had left. A box of kitten food was sat on the countertop, beside the wall, the top ripped open and a small silver scoop just poking over the top.

Matt groaned as he dropped his bag beside the door. "Swagger?" 

He heard a thud from the other side of the apartment, followed by a loud curse and something along the lines of 'you little shit!' being yelled. Quiet footsteps then made their way towards the kitchen, where Matt was stood with his arms folded and his foot tapping impatiently against the floor. 

Swagger leaned against the doorframe, clearly unbothered by the noises. His arms were covered in small red scratches and children's band-aids that Mason had bought as a joke. His face was scratched and red, a small bruise forming beside his lips. "Can I help?" 

Matt gestured to the mess that surrounded him. "I leave you for one week. One fuckin' week, Swagger, and you make the entire apartment look like a-a fucking atom bomb went off! Explain." 

"I found a friend and I had to let her stay because she's sick and she would've died if I didn't let her stay here." Swagger nodded, as though he was confirming it with himself more than he was with Matt. 

"I... What sort of friend eats fucking cat food?" Matt couldn't believe that he was actually saying those words together in a sentence. He believed that he was the first person in the history of the world to ever say that – and it wasn't something to be proud of. 

"You can't judge people based on their diets because they're different than yours." Swagger rolled his eyes and frowned. "Christ, you're supposed to be the tolerant one here." 

Matt pinched his nose between his forefinger and thumb and let his eyes drift shut. He sighed, loudly. "Pets aren't allowed in the building." His face shifted to a frown. "We'll get kicked out if the landlord finds out!" 

"You'll barely know she's here-" A crash came from the hallway. "Starting now." 

A small, black cat appeared at Swaggers feet. She rubbed against his ankles before looking up at Matt and happily trotting over to see what he was. She had faded green eyes and a bright red collar, a golden charm on it that displayed the address. Her nose was slightly pink, and there was a white patch over her left ear. She mewed softly at Matt as she investigated his combat boots, rubbing her cheeks against them and purring quietly. Her fur was patchy. There was a scratch along her right cheek.

Matt looked down and watched her for a while. She didn't seem as bad as he'd expected. He was expecting a feral cat from how Swagger had yelled, something with bloody fangs and claws sharp enough to rip a heart out. Not a kitten with a pink nose and barely enough weight on her body to put a scale over two kilos. As much as he hated to admit it, she was sort of cute. 

"She's called Cinder." Swagger hummed, pushing himself away from the door and walking into the kitchen. His steps were soft as he manoeuvred around the shredded cardboard and the ripped plastic and the rest of the atomic mess that had been left in her wake. He crouched down and held his hand out for the cat, who stopped investigating Matt to go and see what Swagger had to offer. 

"Why?" 

"'Cause of the fire." Swagger picked her up and held her to his chest. She happily leaned in and rubbed her head against his shoulder, her claws flexing as she was lifted back up to a normal, standing height as opposed to six inches from the floor. She was completely unaware of the grim reality of her name, but it suited her. 

Matt nodded, his mind instantly switching the subject away from the alley it was tempted to go down. "As much as you love her, Swags, we can't afford to keep a cat as well as maintaining this shithole and keeping everyone else alive." 

"I got the cash from Cam." Swagger swayed slightly as he held her, as though he was a parent trying to rock their child to sleep. "Told him it was for more ammo and a new security system over the office." 

"You can't keep lying to him about what we need cash for, Swagger! He's gonna find out and then we're both gonna be in the shit for keeping it a secret-"

Swagger frowned. "He barely comes over, I'll just say that I'm watching over her for the guys upstairs if he does... Please." 

Matt sighed, again, and lifted his bag from the floor. He watched Swagger for a few minutes in silence, he seemed to be more invested in the stray than Matt had ever seen him before. He held her as though she was the most fragile thing in the world, his hand gently running over her patchy fur and his lips curled into a soft smile. It was nice to see him untensed and calm, rather than tensed and filled with pointless anxiety over botched deals and trades that had gone south faster than they'd been set up. 

"Fine... Okay, fine." He knew that he'd regret his decision later. But it was called later for a reason. "You can keep her, but as soon as she makes one wrong move I'm taking her to my mom's place." 

"Deal!"


	17. Crimson Stained Evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For context - Evan is working for the cops and the mafia at the same time, not just casually breaking into the police station.

The station grew idle as the day turned dark. Artificial white lights sat over desks as the last few cops finished writing their reports and read the last few paragraphs of their cases. They tugged at their hair and tapped pens against the papers that they were trying to compress into something understandable to the public. Two cops were discussing a case over coffee and a selection of chocolates that Sami had brought in a few days ago. Photos of missing people and newspaper clippings lined a whiteboard on the back wall, black marker scribbles putting the evidence in the eye of the rest of the cops. A water cooler was in the corner. Each desk had a small lamp on it, most of them being turned off for being too harsh when mixed with the lights from above. 

Evan stared blankly at his screen. His eyes scanned the dud casefile for the fifth time, flickering across to the photos that were attached to the file every now and then. An empty coffee cup was beside him, crumbs from his singular meal littering the black surface that his hands rested on. His desk was otherwise clear. No photos of his family or friends littered the sides of his monitor, or the back of his desk. No knick-knacks covered the cracks that had appeared in the paint. An abundance of post-it notes were piled in his drawer from Craig not understanding where his 'motivational quotes' had to stop. 

He looked like a mess. His hair was styled in at least three different directions. His eyes were tired, dark bags under them from countless restless nights. His left hand was covered by a bandage, bruises and cuts hidden beneath the material that Tyler had wrapped around his hand the night before. Circular glasses sat over his nose, reflecting the light from his computer back on itself. A cut ran across his right cheek, a scab starting to form over it from a fight he'd gotten into the night before. His leg was bouncing under the desk.

Craig sat down opposite him with a coffee in his right hand and a singular file in his left. He grinned as he set the file over his keyboard, brushing his stress toy out of the way to have enough space for it to rest. He looked as good as anyone could after 12-hour shift – slightly messy hair, bright eyes, a smile, and a tone that made him look like the happiest man alive. A plaster was wrapped around his finger from a paper cut, and another pressed against the back of his palm from a blood test. One of the lenses of his glasses was cracked.

Evan looked up from his screen and nodded towards the files. "What's that for?" 

"They let me have access to Marcel and Scott's case." Craig seemed ecstatic considering how grim the case was, but his attitude wasn't all that shocking considering how excited he got during murder trials. "I'm on as their supervisor 'cause they had a shootout in some house downtown the other day with the Mafia, and now they're 'not to be trusted on their own' and 'a danger to themselves'."

Evan forced a laugh. "When can they ever be trusted on their own?" 

"Y'know... You have a point."

They'd shot first. Evan had to return the fire to give David enough time to get out with their information. It wasn't his fault that Brian had decided to try and negotiate their way out of it, which had resulted in dismal failure. It wasn't his fault that Wildcat had thrown one of Delirious' many bats through the window and triggered retaliating fire from the cops. It wasn't his fault that he'd almost killed Scotty and hadn't realised who it was until he'd heard Marcel scream. Brian had forced the group to stop firing and made them leave before someone else ended up dead.

A few moments of heavy silence passed through the room. Loud footsteps passed through the room. The clacking of multiple keyboards rang heavily. The water cooler bubbled as someone poured themselves a cup. Someone groaned and hit their hands against the keyboard. A set of keys hit against one of the desks, the clink of the metal ringing loudly. Craig flipped a page on the file, quietly, and frowned. 

"I forgot to tell you, Ev. The evidence for our case is in the lockers, Chrissy called earlier and I was gonna go grab it, but I gotta go home to read this shit over." He gestured down to the file. "All of my files and pens a-and papers are back at my place, so it's gonna be better if I do it there..." 

"Where is it?" Evan saved the file he was reading over and rolled his eyes, a small smile twinging at his lips. The white glow of his screen faded to black as he logged the computer off and let the reflection fade in his glasses. His office chair seemed to get more and more uncomfortable as he waited for a reply, it squeaked slightly as he spun from side-to-side to prevent complete boredom. He stared down at his desk, furrowing his brows at the empty space before him. Maybe he'd print a photo of his cat when he got home to make it seem less lonely. 

"Third shelf along from the right. It's the box with blood all over it and the dodgy sticker on the front." Craig smiled as he started to pack his things up for the night. "Could you leave it on my desk so I can check it over in the morning?"

"Ten dollars and I'll bring you a coffee from dunkin' on the way in tomorrow." 

"Deal."

Evan took the stairs down to the evidence lockers, his footsteps echoing loudly. He tapped the fire extinguisher as he passed by, it was cold beneath his touch. The fluorescent yellow light from above flickered slightly, sending the stairwell into darkness for a few moments at a time before coming back to life. Nobody else was with him which was a pleasant change to the usual bustle that overflowed the place during the working hours. The banister was covered in fingerprints from people forgetting that it had been varnished, despite the 'WET VARNISH' signs that were present on each floor. 

There was a bright sign above the lockers with the word 'EVIDENCE' in a bold font and lit up with a fading white light. The green exit sign glowed from the opposite side of the hallway. A fire alarm sat behind a sheet of glass. The floor was covered in dirty footprints, dark browns pressing against the white of the floor in a way that reminded Evan far too much of Ryan's place. A blue light showed from the scanner to let people in and out. A wire sheet was in the wall, a computer and an open book with unreadable black pen scrawls filling the blank spaces behind it. 

The evidence lockers were full of things that Evan dreamed of being able to use. A box of disarmed grenades was behind a grate that Delirious could pick in a matter of seconds. A few guns were lying around on shelves, lying over papers and leaving nothing to the imagination when it came to what they had been used for. A bloody, serrated knife was lying in an evidence bag. A jar of marbles was lying on its side, over half of them stained a complex mixture of reds that contrasted the glassy greens and blues that barely showed through the painted façade. A rubber duck with a top-hat sat on its own, cold crimson pressed against the yellow material that it was made out of. 

"Third shelf from the..." He muttered, his shoes clicking against the cold laminate that covered the floor. "Right?" 

He paced up and down the small 'hall' between the third and fourth shelf from the right, just as Craig had said. Guns and papers and boxes without blood covered the metal shelves. Yellow markers and white stickers were around the items, giving them a tag so that they could be tracked back to the files at the front. Marks were scrawled onto the stickers, labelling everything from the bloody rubber duck to the broken gun that had been used to kill seven people. 

"Found you!" The bloody box was beside the wall. An evidence sticker was poorly glued to the front, clear writing marking the slightly yellowed paper. The corners were curled. A variety of red stains painted the brown box, seeming as though someone had let a toddler have a go at it with a tin of red paint and a used paintbrush. 

Evan smiled to himself as he pulled it from the shelf. It was heavy. His curiosity grew as he made his way back to the front, especially when something rattled inside. It wasn't going to kill anyone if he looked through it. 

He set it down beside the logging book and picked up the ballpoint pen that was chained to the desk to note that he was taking it out. The pen was dying, but it still worked well enough for him to make a note. He discovered that someone had taken out a snapped knife blade a few hours before as he tried to remember the date. He wondered which one of his colleagues needed to examine the end of a knife to find their suspect. 

The box was supposed to help him learn who shot Smitty. It was originally Marcel and Scotty's case, but it had been transferred across after Scotty drove a squad car through a storefront in a chase that lead to a (literal) dead end. Evan had thrown himself and Craig into the case, agreeing almost immediately after the case had been offered to them. It was better than stalking the case from beneath the surface like he'd been planning on doing after Marcel and Scott took the case.

Looking inside couldn't hurt, right?

He lifted the lid of the bloody box and peered inside, frowning at the plastic bags that littered the interior. Bullets were held in separate bags, the faint bronze scratched to hell ad back from the way that they'd left the guns they'd been taken from. Photos and a black USB stick were in the mix, mostly holding footage taken from CCTV cameras that had been put up in response to the surge in petty theft that had settled in the city in the past weeks. The photos were all of the scene after Smitty had been taken away, a bloody outline pressed against the cracked paving stones that lined the side of the road and a shoe left at the bottom of the outline after a paramedic had removed it. The duffel bag was long gone by the time the cops got there, Tyler having rushed in to take it away before anyone found the weapon that had killed a man a few blocks away. There were a few photos of the roof opposite the outline, and a few taken from the roof to get an angle on where the bullet had come from. 

The lid of the box was rested against the keyboard and he took the packet containing the USB from inside. It had unreadable writing over the front, most of the letters clouded together to form a black splodge over the plastic. He left the photos, he didn't need to see what had happened in still images when he had the moving thing in his hand. He folded the bag around the USB and pushed it into his back pocket, it crinkled slightly as he fumbled with it. A sense of guilt weight in over his shoulders, but taking it for himself was for the greater good, right? 

David could download the USB and have it back to Evan within two hours, if he rushed the process. He could mess with the footage to drag the cops away from the revenge trip that everybody seemed to be high from after the incident, only letting them in on what was going on during the final stages of their high. It could be back before the night was over and nobody would be any wiser as to the adventure that it had been on. Nobody would know that the mafia were steps ahead of where they were, that their evidence was corrupted by the very people they were looking for. 

Craig wouldn't even know that it was gone.


	18. Chapter 18

"John!" 

The hacker looked up from his blurry screen and blinked hard at the road in front of him. His head was woozy, his mind running on near empty. "Yeah?" 

"I need the location?" 

"Oh... Yeah." John shook his head and turned back to the blurred screen before him. His fingers glided across the keys as though it were second nature, which it was by this point, and his eyes scanned the map before him as though it was the easiest thing in the world to read. 

His mind was half-asleep as he tried to make sense of the things before him. His earpiece buzzed softly with the sound of people talking about things he hadn't been listening to. The radio played quiet music to keep himself awake as the night clouded over the car he'd been sat in for the past two hours. His hands were starting to ache from the awkward angle that he'd been typing at for the past few days. His stomach was starting to hurt from not eating anything for three days straight. His mouth was dry. 

John followed the route with tired eyes. "They should be waiting at the uh- the bottom floor for Moo... The cops are surveying the main route there, so you're gonna have to go the long way around. I-I've sent the route to Daithi."

"Thanks, man." 

John watched cars and people pass in front of him with a small frown. He closed the lid of his laptop and set it down on the passenger seat, his hands drifting across to the steering wheel before him. He turned the radio up and hit his head against the headrest as the chorus finally kicked in. His eyes drifted shut as the music pounded at his skull, the bass begging to be felt as it bounced around the interior of his car. His stomach started to hurt as his body begged for nutrition, his mouth got drier as he started to think about the coffee date he'd had to skip to go on this damned job. He'd been looking forward to a mocha all week.

There were times that he hated his job, and now had to be one of those times. He wanted to go home and sleep, but he wasn't allowed to leave until Tyler was out from whatever job it was that Brock had sent him on this time. He was pretty sure that it was a way to chase up cash that had gone missing after being handed over to be given to a children's hospital, but he was never sure on the small details unless they directly concerned him. In that case, the small details were David's job, and he wasn't someone to intervene on work unless he could see it going horribly wrong. 

Two hours. 

It took two hours for the job to be over, and John had passed out in the front seat about half an hour after Tyler had stopped talking to him. He screamed when he heard David talking to him through the earpiece, his hand flying down to the pocket where he hid his pistol in a blind and delirious panic. He hit his head against the mirror as he sat bolt upright in his seat, and it only added to the sleep deprived headache that had been haunting him for the duration of the week. 

John pressed his hand to his forehead and let his eyes drift shut as the pain spread further. "God, I hate you." 

"I asked a question." David laughed quietly to himself. "Do ye want pizza tonight?" 

"I'm going home." John leaned back into his seat and rested his pistol over his lap, both of his hands pressing against his forehead to try and combat the pain that was still spreading. "Ask Vanoss, he likes pizza." 

"You like pizza." David sounded like he was frowning. "C'mon, we got the location on the cash, man... We're all gonna go celebrate back at Moo's place."

"I'm too tired, Daithi." John shook his head and opened his eyes. "I'm gonna sleep and I-I'll come visit sometime tomorrow, okay?" 

His phone buzzed with a thread of texts from the date he'd had to abandon. The music from the radio was loud. David complained into his ear about him being a spoilsport for being tired. Cars passed by in blurs before him. 

"Stay safe, Kryoz... Get some rest, alright?" Daithi sighed once he realised that John wasn't going to join him for drinks at Brock's apartment. 

"You too." John took his earpiece out and snaked the wire out from beneath his shirt, watching the coil bounce in his hand with a small smile pressed against his lips. He dumped it on top of his laptop.

He stepped outside of the car to get a hit of fresh air to wake him up. He didn't want to drive while he was half asleep, knowing damned well that he'd end up crashing himself into a lamppost if he tried. The cold night breeze was soft against his scratched features, the air sending shivers down his spine. The pistol was tapping against his leg as he woke himself, his anxious mind running faster and faster as both his front and back were exposed. 

He started to pace beside his car, his free hand pulling at the roots of his hair in an attempt to shock himself awake since the cold wasn't doing much more than making him... Cold. His boots clicked loudly in the dark alleyway. The light in his car faded away. The sound of his pistol hitting his leg got somewhat louder. His head was still pounding. His stomach growled. His mouth was dry. He was so, so tired.

Footsteps got closer. A knife scraped against the wall.

John spun around and almost fell over in a wave of dizziness from the sudden movement. He balanced himself out against the car. "Who-"

A flash of hot, white pain spread through his arm. Adrenaline almost immediately set itself in place, despite his level of exhaustion, as a glinting, crimson knife got closer to his throat. Wide eyes watched a man with pitch black hair move into view. The gun fell to the floor.

Fuck. 

He managed to hold the knife back with the small amount of adrenaline that fought through his exhaustion, his arms wavering against the strangers strong hold. His breaths were quick. Why didn't he listen to Smitty when he told him to stay home? 

The blade got closer. 

His tired mind raced as fast as it could on the little sleep he'd had. Plans for how he was going to make it out alive chased each other through the thick fog that sat over his logical thoughts. His painted nails dug into the strangers arm, he felt blood pooling around his fingers and felt it dripping down his arm. 

"W-What the fuck do-do you want?" John got an idea. A risky idea, yes, but an idea nonetheless. 

"My money." The man replied. 

"Money?" John let out a breathy laugh, gritting his teeth as he wrestled to get the knife away from his throat. Brian had told him to talk to keep himself alive, to distract someone until they had something to go on a tangent about until they forgot what they were supposed to be doing. Then he could attack. 

"You fuckers stole my money, all 40 grand of it." 

"I-I haven't stole money sin-since I lived with my mom." His arm started to coat itself in a layer of both pain and blood. An unpleasant mix to anyone. "If y-ou're looking for someone who has... I-I can show you where th-they are." 

"Don't lie to me, pretty boy." The knife got closer. John planted his left foot firmly on the ground. 

"I'm not-not lying." John took a deep breath. "And I-I'm in a relationship."

"With who? Your boss?" The man chuckled. 

"Moo?" John winced as he felt the adrenaline start to ware off. He took another deep breath. "God, no. I-I w-wouldn't touch my... My boss." 

"That's what they all say." The pressure of his hold against the knife got slightly softer. "Just you wait, Kryoz, when he wants something... Oh, boy, when he wants something..." He laughed.

John kicked upward with his right foot. The man keeled over in pain, the knife clattering down to the floor as his arms curled around his stomach. He groaned loudly. John kicked him again, this time sending him down to the ground where the sound of bone cracking filled the alleyway like the music that had come from the radio not even ten minutes ago. He kicked again, and again, and again until his boots were stained red and the man on the floor was barely recognisable. 

God, he was tired. 

He got back into the car and picked the gun from the floor before he started to examine his own arm. Crimson painted his skin, a particularly ugly wound spanning about two inches digging against him. It was hot to the touch, and white pain shot through him whenever he tried to get close to it. Fuck. 

His head was pounding. 

He reached down for a jacket that Smitty had abandoned in the car and wrapped it around his arm, pulling it tightly over the wound despite the stinging sensation that ran alongside it. He couldn't drive home like this. He'd bleed out before he even made it halfway, for gods sake. 

He reached for his phone with his free hand, quickly swiping across one of the text notifications to unlock it. 

He pressed on the contact, it rang six times. 

"Toby... I-I need some help."


	19. The Benefit of a Goodbye

The bed moved quickly through a white hallway. People dressed in blue surrounded the bed. Smitty blinked slowly and managed to move his gaze away from the ceiling and the people above. He couldn't see his legs – did he even have legs? His hands curled and uncurled around something soft, his fingers feeling as though they were rusted joints on a broken machine. There was something in the crook of his elbow and a clear wire lead up to a clear bag on a hook that was moving beside the bed, he wanted to pull it out.

His brain walked slowly, his mind barely registering the things that surrounded him. He could hear himself breathing loudly, as though it was music being played through a set of headphones rather than the process that kept him alive. The roof above him was blurry, the faint black dots of detail blending together to look like spilled ink rather than splatters of paint pressed against an off-white tile. He saw an orange painting move past, it looked nice in the blur that he saw it in. Maybe he could take it home if he asked politely. 

"Doesn't he have any relatives?" A woman asked as the bed continued to move down the never-ending hallway. "Like... Not even a cousin?"

"Apparently, he was saying something about an uncle before he was put under, but Chrissy can't find shit on him." Another woman in white replied, her pale hand pressed against a metal barrier in his bed. "Might just have bad family relations... You never know, Simone." 

The first woman, Simone, frowned. "So, it's just those guys who arrived with him?" 

"Yeah." 

"I don't like the look of them."

"I heard they were mafia." A new voice added, her tone peppier than the others. 

The second woman laughed to herself. "Fucking hell, Kelly. Don't say that."

"Don't shoot the messenger, Lauren." Kelly seemed to smile.

The blurry, white hallway faded to black.

––––––

A heart monitor beeped rhythmically beside the uncomfortable hospital bed, the green line growing and falling with each passing beat. An IV line was wired into a pale arm. A cannula was in his hand, white bandages holding it in place from his numerous attempts at pulling it out himself. A pot was around his right leg, the bandages dark blue and decorated with a set of brightly coloured signatures and doodles. The TV was playing 'Love, actually' quietly, Christmas music playing in the background as snow slowly drifted over the city of London. Wires surrounded the pale boy, faded freckles seeming even dimmer under the fluorescent white light of the hospital room. A small Spider-Man plush was on the desk, Evan had bought it once he'd learned that Smitty was out of surgery.

Birds sang outside of the window, quiet songs drifting into the air to mix with the endless sound of cars backfiring and construction work taking place across the street. The curtains drifted softly in the faint breeze, a soft light just getting through them and casting over the tiled floor. A few drink cans and a battered UNO box sat on the table beside the bed, 'get well soon' cards and balloons were littering the place from head to toe. A bottle of lemon and lime water was stood upright behind the 'get well soon' cards, the cap screwed on at an angle and the label pealing at the seams. 

Smitty groaned as he came back around from his drug-induced rest. His eyes flickered between open and closed as he struggled to adjust to the bright white surroundings that painted the room he was in. The thin blanket over him was barely managing to keep him warm, but he couldn't call someone to complain about it because he'd be wasting their time. He'd have to ask John to get him a warmer blanket when he got back.

He felt warm and fuzzy inside, despite being freezing on the outside. His frizzy white hair fell over his forehead, curly, greasy strands falling over his scratched complexion and itching at the scabs and cuts that painted his features. The bandage around his hand didn't scratch like it had the last time he'd woke up, and the cannula in his hand didn't feel as... Stabby as it had a few hours ago. Maybe it was the drugs being pumped into his system to dull down whatever he was supposed to be feeling in his leg, or maybe he was just that full up on trauma that he'd gone completely numb. 

Either way, it was working.

He reached for the Spider-Man plush with a weak arm and hummed quietly when his fingers curled around the soft material. Slowly, he dragged it off of the desk and onto the bed, his mind still running slowly as he tried to bring it closer to his chest. He stared at the faint details on the red surface for longer than he usually would've, his mind taking far too long to cling onto what was before him. His breaths were soft as he hugged it closer, his eyes drifting shut as he tried to get some form of comfort from it. Evan had told him that he'd gotten the Spider-Man to keep him safe when he was alone in the white hospital room and the small group that sat around had laughed. 

The heart monitor beeped rhythmically beside his bed, and he tried to match his breathing to each rise and fall of the green like that was showing just how 'alive' he really was. The clear IV line was starting to annoy him, but he knew that he'd only get told off by numerous people if he tried to take it out again, so he left it to be annoying. The bandage around his hand was getting more and more tempting to rip off, the loose strings pulling at his curiosity and begging to be unwound from around the cannula that had only been changed the night before. 

A nurse came in to check his vitals as the movie caught his attention again. She adjusted the amount of drugs being fed into his system and made notes of the numbers on the heart monitor, smiling the entire time. He wondered how she could be so happy in a place so full of people who were dying, because Smitty sure as hell struggled to be happy when people were dying. Especially when some of them were dying because of him.

"You're doing better than you were earlier." She noted down his BPM and smiled. 

"Does that mean I can go home?" Smitty looked away from the screen and raised an eyebrow.

"No, not yet... We still need to keep an eye on you to make sure that the wound doesn't get infected and that you don't have a reaction to the plating the surgeon put in to hold you together. It's unlikely that either will actually happen, but it's a safety precaution that we have to take." She placed the black ballpoint beneath the silver clip that held her papers in place. She pushed a strand of dark hair out of her face and offered him a smile, which he returned quickly. "I'll be back in a few hours to check on your vitals, press the button if you need anything."

"Thank you." 

She waved at him as she left his room, a faint and vaguely sympathetic smile tracing her soft features.

Then, Smitty was left alone again, and his mind decided to go wandering.

It had all happened so fast, and it was oh so fucking painful. He'd been drugged up to his eyeballs as soon as he arrived in the ER and that in itself had clouded his memories from there on out. It was all too hazy for him to recall anything solidly, most of it coming through in flashes filled with fog rather than anything he could grasp onto. 

He could recall hitting the concrete, and John crying over him as the pain started to take its toll on his body. He vaguely remembered being taken to the hospital, the paramedic continuously trying to make small talk to keep him awake. He remembered lying in the ER and being told that he had to have immediate surgery to save his leg, and he remembered slurring a 'yeah' as Brock was silent in his attempt at a reply.

After he came around properly from the anaesthetic after the surgery, Brock had told him off for not backing up anything on his phone. He'd showed him the smashed screen and unlocked it without any effort at all, and the only thing to actually show up was the 'anxiety' playlist that he'd been listening to as he was shot and his contacts list. 

It was Fitz's fault that he didn't back things up, he'd told Smitty that backing it up would be the sure-fire way to let the cops find him if he ever lost it, and Smitty had taken his word as gospel. Anyone would, with the way that it had been put. He'd lost countless memories and friends through it, but he was yet to have been caught by the cops for something on his phone, so he counted it as a win more than a loss.

A blossoming anxiety opened in the pit of his stomach and he let out a quiet groan. It buzzed as it tried to learn about what was going to happen, his senses heightening themselves to figure out the logistics of what he was anxious about. He almost managed to convince himself that it was his brain reacting to the drugs, that his mind was experiencing too much at once for it to comprehend and was just conjuring up the anxiety as a way to cope with the overload. It didn't work.

Two knocks came to the door. 

A mess of tangled brown hair peaked around it as it opened, dull and sunken blue eyes tracing the room in search of something – or someone. He wore a mustard yellow hoodie with intentional holes cut into the shoulders. A faint red scar was drawn beside his cheek. A pale hand curled around the smooth wooden surface and a silver watch glinted slightly in the light from the window. 

"Mason?" 

"Smitty?"

"Mason?!"

Smitty pushed himself upright and stared at his old friend with wide eyes. His hands clenched around the thin duvet that covered the bright blue cast and his nails dug trenches into the fabric. His breathing got shallow as he stared at the Australian, his chest flooding with a mix of panic and bittersweet memories that had previously been forgotten. He felt himself start to shake.

"I'm sorry." Mason let the door close behind him and made his way closer to the bed. "Smitty, I-I'm so fucking sorry." 

Smitty shook his head and practically dragged Mason into a hug from where he laid. He smelled like vanilla aftershave that he'd always used, and his hair was soft against Smitty's ear. He rested his head against Mason's shoulder as he had after his first kill, his hands gripping onto the soft material as though it was the only thing keeping him from falling further than he already had. Tears built in the corners of his eyes. The ocean of saltwater panic in his chest started to waver slightly as the awaiting tsunami built itself taller.

"Don't cry..." Mason laughed softly and pressed his hand around the back of Smitty's head to pull him closer. "C'mon, man, you're gonna set me off." 

"Sorry." Smitty didn't let go, as much as his instincts were telling him to. Everything in his mind was screaming at him to let go, to scream at Mason for lying to him. To be the person that everybody thought that he was, unafraid to confront anything that came his way and brave enough to stand against the things that did. But he wasn't that person, and the fact that he wouldn't snap at Mason proved it.

"How the fuck aren't you dead?"

"I got picked up." Smitty let himself fall back to the uncomfortable pillow and had to hold back the laugh that exploded in his chest when Mason almost fell over the metal barrier that was up to stop him from trying to throw himself out of the bed. Again. 

"By who?" Mason pushed the barrier down and sat on the edge of the bed and raised an eyebrow. "The mafia?" 

"I-No." Smitty lied. "Why-Why would I work with those fuckers?" His chest tightened with each word he said. 

"Fitz knows you're with them..." Mason deadpanned. "He told us all the week before that happened," he pointed to the cast on Smitty's leg. "and he's pissed off 'cause he taught you better than to fuck around with the rich pricks." 

"It's not like I had a choice, Mason!" Smitty glared at his old friend. "They saved me, and I owe them for that a-" He let out a short breath and tried to collect his thoughts from the tornado that was destroying his mind. "Fit-Fitz tried to fucking kill me, Mason... I'm not gonna stay 'loyal' to him after that shit."

"Twice." Mason added. 

"Tw-..." Smitty looked down at the case of his leg. Realisation set in quicker than he'd fell to the floor, his mind running towards the answer as though it were racing towards an Olympic gold. The tsunami of saltwater panic was overcome by a hurricane of anger, or confusion. Maybe both. He shook his head. "Mase..." 

"I tried to stop it." Mason pressed his hand over Smitty's and frowned, a moment of regret passing over his eyes as he tried to think about what he had to say, as opposed to what he should. "I was locked in Fitz's car when the shot was fired a-and I tried to make him stop, Smit, I swear but he doesn't fuckin' listen unless..." He paused in search of the right way to phrase his next few words. "Unless it can make him better in the end." 

A brief moment of silence flashed between the pair. Smitty's mind was overrun with emotions that he hadn't felt in months, all smashing into one another faster than he could physically comprehend. The saltwater tsunami of panic started to tip over its building point, completely jumping the wall that he'd spent all that time building. His eyes filled with hot and salty tears, full infinity pools of emotion trying to throw their contents out into the world so that they could finally be seen by someone- anyone.

"Don't-Don't fucking touch me." Smitty pulled his hand away from Mason, pure and unscathed anguish settling over his features as he stared at his old friend. "W-What gives you the right-... Who- Fuck you!"

"Matt had the gun." Mason dug his nails into the bedsheets and frowned. He screwed his eyes shut and let his head hang low. "I-I tried, Smitty, I fucking swear I tried to stop them but... They never listen to me!"

Smitty's eyes darkened with each passing second, a pool full of tears threatening to tip over the edge as he blinked harder to get rid of them. "Just go away."

Mason stood up and started to walk towards the door again, his face drawn with a frown and his posture visibly lower than it had been when he walked in. "I'm sorry, Smitty."

Smitty didn't give him the benefit of a goodbye.


	20. Orange Motel

“You two are in room 34, just up the white stairs and to the right.” A receptionist with a painfully heavy southern accent grinned, blonde hair styled in a beehive and ruby red lips drawn far too large. She wore a faint blue dress, the collar made out of white lace and the buttons glittering slightly beneath the faint light from above her. A golden crucifix hung around her neck, faint red stones decorating it. 

“Thank you, ma’am.” Craig took the key from her bruised hand and flashed his signature forced smile. 

“It’s no problem sugar,” She turned back down to her crossword puzzle, thin eyebrows furrowing as she tried to figure out the 8-letter phrase for a roadside problem. Her earrings hit the sides of her face, softly, and her necklace hung a few inches away from her chest. The blue pen scratched softly against the newspaper. “Just keep yourselves safe.” Her tone was nothing short of concerned as she wished them well, almost ominous in a way.

Evan took that as his cue to walk away, teeth gritted and eyes set on the ground. His white trainers thudded softly with each step he took, the laces untied and the soles covered in dirt and gravel. A black jacket covered a dark grey t-shirt that had a scratched-up image of Jack Skellington pressed to it. Ripped black jeans were covered in loose threads and showed the bruises and cuts that covered his legs from his various mistakes over the past month or so. A Disney plaster was wrapped around the tip of his finger from an incident with one of Ohm’s knives the night before.

It was cool outside, the sun lazily hidden behind streaky clouds that decorated the pale blue sky. The orange walls of the motel were chipped and cracked, lazily covered by new layers of paint that didn’t match the original by a mile. The stairs were white and covered in dirty footprints, the railings not looking too much better. A few cars were in the car park, most of them covered in dirt and grime from months of not being cleaned, the tires ever so slightly deflated and the wing mirrors bent inwards. Glass shards were swept into a small pile beside the entrance way, mixed in with a blend of cigarette ashes and chewed up pink gum. 

His bag was heavy over his shoulders, containing enough clothes and equipment to last him up to a week whilst they were on their stakeout. The guilt of the job was weighing heavy, the very idea of having to abandon his family for upwards of a week seeming completely unfair. He understood why he’d been chosen to go on it, considering Scotty and Marcel’s track record with stakeouts, but it still didn’t feel... Right. 

He wanted to be listening to the hits of the 2000s and talking about things that nobody else would talk about with Tyler. He wanted to be drinking an iced-coffee on the boardwalk, listening to people chatter and laugh at anything they could while drugged up to their limits with Brian, maybe even managing to bribe their way into a free ice-cream. He wanted to be helping Delirious build a new explosive, using his brittle knowledge of chemical bonds to try and make something that would shake the world to its very core (both literally and figuratively).

He wanted to be doing something fun, not living out of a backpack in a room that probably smelled like sex and death and had at least seven different STDs on the carpet alone.

His job wasn’t difficult, this time around. All he had to do was catch an escaped convict before another person died at their hand and live in a dingy motel until he managed to do that. 

The difficult part was going to be putting up with Craig and his overly invasive questioning routine until they found the convict. He always seemed far too curious for his own good when it came to matters that didn’t concern him, the mafia being his main point of interest. He asked and he asked and he asked until Evan made up a lie and sent him on a wild goose chase to get him off of their case, usually linking the money sources to somewhere in Nebraska and kicking back in his seat with a hidden smirk as he watched Craig lose his mind over a lie. 

Did that make him a bad friend? 

A song played from one of the widows, a strong voice accompanied by heart-breaking vocals flooding the area without any breaks. A loud saxophone played from another, jazzy sounds and melodies contrasting the vocals on an atomic scale. Someone played the violin from the bottom floor, scratchy and squeaky in some places but almost perfect in others. A couple screamed at one another from one of the bottom floor rooms, harsh words and loud curses flying freely and without a single care for how it would make the other feel. A child ran up and down the balcony above with a small rabbit teddy clutched in her hands, her denim dungarees painted with bright pink flowers and her hair pinned back with a bright blue butterfly clip.

Craig joined him soon after, a silver key twirling around his forefinger. He whistled a soft tune to himself, pausing suddenly to flash his partner a smile and motion towards the stairs. His steps were light against the tarmac, his black trainers seeming brand new when compared to Evan’s. 

“It’s gonna be midnight before we get all this shit set up.” Evan dragged himself up the stairs, his head falling back as the complaints spilled. Usually, Tyler would be carrying all of his junk around for him. 

Craig smiled over his shoulder, the silver key still spinning and his overly optimistic attitude sticking to him. “It’ll only take an hour or two, man... Stop being so dramatic.” 

“Dramatic is my middle name.” 

“I thought that your middle name was danger? Or was it cautious?” 

“I have a long fucking name, Craig.”


End file.
